The Hunt
by fongiel24
Summary: Shepard is captured by a Spectre for the murder of Tela Vasir and treason against the Citadel Council. Jacob, Garrus, and Miranda must track down his captor and get him back.
1. Prologue

**A/N: **This story was written for a Mass Effect ficathon and is set post-ME2. It pairs M!Shepard and Miranda romantically but there are no romance scenes in this story. The relationship affects Miranda's judgment and actions and she will appear slightly OOC in some parts. I have also fleshed out Jacob in some areas so he may not be exactly as people who have played Mass Effect 2 may remember. This story contains spoilers for Mass Effect 2 and the DLC mission Lair of the Shadow Broker.

This entire story was written in the span of about nine days after I switched ideas halfway through my original entry and had to get this done in time for the ficathon's deadline. I didn't have time to send it to a beta reader as a single, complete package so I apologize for any spelling, grammar, or coherency problems I may have missed.

Special thanks go to Nightwriter and jtav for beta reading and for their wonderful ideas and suggestions and also to Skybound2 for organizing the ficathon in the first place. Everything in this story belongs to Electronic Arts and Bioware.

Thanks for reading and if you like it (or hate it), please leave me a review to let me know what you liked or what you thought I could improve on. Enjoy!

* * *

"Give me a scotch, neat."

With a well-practiced motion, John Shepard, ex-Citadel Council Spectre, slipped a cigarette between his lips and lit it, taking a long drag as he regarded the bartender with narrowed, flint-grey eyes. _Can't be too careful with batarians_. The last drink he'd been served by a batarian bartender had been spiked and although his augmented body had shrugged off most of the effects of the poison, it had still felt like swallowing a mouthful of ground glass. _Has it really been that long since I ordered a drink at a bar? _

The batarian filled the tumbler without adding anything extra that Shepard could see and slid it across the bar. Flicking the end of his cigarette into an ash tray on the bar top, Shepard tossed the tumbler back. _Last time was on Omega after that 'date' with Morinth. What was that… two months ago? Might as well be a lifetime. _He slid the empty tumbler back to the bartender.

"Keep pouring and don't stop until I tell you to."

For a moment he wondered if he should maybe at least send a message to Miranda telling her where he was but quickly pushed that thought out of his mind. _She'd just get more worried. Not worth it. _He felt a pang of guilt. _She only worries because she cares about you, you idiot. _

He knew he hadn't been the same since they'd returned through the Omega-4 relay. He'd always prided himself on his ability to bury his emotions, covering them up so he could present that unflappable, invincible image that everyone expected of him but this time he hadn't been able to hide them. _Not from her_. It had taken time and effort, first as a suspicious handler, then as a friend and later as… _something more_, but Miranda Lawson had eventually learned to see through the screens he put up. _Not that she really needed to look for subtle hints when I woke her up every night with my thrashing and shouting. _Before too long, even the crew had begun to notice – _the ones who survived, anyway_ – and he had realized he couldn't hide it anymore.

Their strike on the Collector station had been a success. The Collector threat had been ended with a single daring raid against impossible odds. _But it came with a price. _ Casualties had been high. Miranda, thinking this had been what tore at him, had assured him it hadn't been his fault. _She couldn't understand. The people we lost were only the beginning – casualties of the opening salvos of this war. There will be more. _The Reapers were coming and it was up to him to stop them. Cruel fate had seen fit to place the salvation of the galaxy in the hands of a fallible, very mortal human being. The weight of that responsibility was too much for any one man to bear. He was tired and afraid – exhausted from fighting a seemingly invincible foe and terrified of what would happen if he failed.

"_Talk to me, John. Tell me what's wrong." _

She'd pleaded with him, her deep blue eyes begging him to let her in, let her help him carry his burden but in the end, his courage had failed him. His courage had failed him and he'd shut her out, too afraid to let her see his fears, see him vulnerable and broken.

And so John Ethan Shepard, war hero a dozen times over, had run. He'd run to the very edge of colonized space, to the far reaches of the Terminus Systems to this bar where he sought solace in the bottom of a glass instead of in the arms of a woman who cared deeply about him.

He hadn't chosen this ramshackle bar on Minthras IV, a backwater world in a system no one cared about, by accident though. On worlds like Minthras, nobody cared about the goings on of Council space. Nobody could recognize a Spectre hero and even if they had, no one would care. He could be alone here with his thoughts, drinking himself stupid until he summoned the courage to once more return to the fight.

Shepard glanced up at the mirror mounted behind the bar and frowned. His palms were tingling – a sensation he'd learned to trust as a physical sign his instincts were telling him something was wrong. He found his eyes drawn to a small group of men who'd just entered the bar – three turians and a pair of humans.

There wasn't anything about them that should have drawn his suspicion. Turians made up a large part of Minthras IV's permanent population and although humans were less common, they weren't rare in the Terminus either. All of them looked quite muscular for their respective species, but that wasn't exactly strange either – Minthras IV was a mining world and the hard life of a miner meant the locals tended to be more heavily built than was the norm on more 'civilized' worlds…

Shepard's eyes widened as his conscious mind finally caught on to what his instincts were trying to tell him. _Their clothes are too new. _Minthras IV's harsh, dry winds tended to give everyone who set foot on it a tired, weather-beaten appearance within a few days of arrival. Due to its remote location, the only ships that made the trek out to Minthras IV were the large cargo haulers that stopped by every few weeks to pick up ore and drop off supplies and personnel. _I landed on the last ship – four days ago. There shouldn't be any new miners arriving here for at least another few days. _

Now that he'd picked them out, his well-honed instincts began pointing out other warning signs – suspicious bulges in the clothing of the newcomers that suggested weapons, the way their eyes seemed to wander over him a bit too often, the way they carried themselves that betrayed their military training…

Shepard reached into his jacket for another cigarette, unsnapping the catch on his underarm holster as he brought it up to his mouth. Two more suspicious-looking newcomers appeared at both of the bar's exits as a human from the first group approached him.

The man took a seat on the barstool next to his and turned to him.

"Hey buddy, can I bum a smoke?"

Shepard shrugged and offered him one, even pulling out his lighter to light it for the stranger. The flame of his lighter flickered oddly as he brought it up to the cigarette in the man's mouth. _Kinetic barrier. _

The man puffed on his cigarette a few times, then leaned in towards Shepard.

"Commander John Shepard?" he asked softly, his voice almost a whisper. Shepard gestured for the bartender to bring him a beer. The batarian seemed to have also sensed something was wrong and disappeared into a side room as soon as he handed Shepard a cold longneck. Shepard ignored the man for a moment as he popped the cap off the beer bottle.

"Who's asking?"

The man produced a badge from his coat.

"Citadel Security Services. We're here to bring you in."

Shepard tilted back his beer and let the cool liquid trickle down his throat. It was a watered down, local brew that left a foul aftertaste in his mouth.

"Can I ask what for?"

"For the murder of a fellow Spectre, Tela Vasir, and treason against the Citadel Council," the man said, unbuttoning his coat to show Shepard the pistol he wore on his hip. "We'd prefer that you come peacefully, but we have orders to do whatever is necessary to take you into custody."

Shepard barely even looked at the man, seeming to focus on his beer but his eyes did a quick scan in the mirror, noting where each of the C-Sec officers stood in the small bar.

"You boys are a long way from home. The Terminus isn't under Council jurisdiction."

The man smiled thinly. Smelling trouble, the other patrons were doing their best to slip out unnoticed.

"No, but Spectres answer to the Council. There's nowhere you can run where we won't come after you."

"So they sent a few C-Sec grunts all the way out here to apprehend a Spectre? I'm a little disappointed. I was hoping I'd at least get to exchange pleasantries with one of my Spectre colleagues." Shepard drummed his fingers lightly on his beer. "Well, since you're here, you can try arresting me but the smart thing to do would be to leave the way you came and tell the Council you couldn't find me."

Shepard fixed the man with a bone chilling glare and his voice suddenly turned menacing. "Last chance to walk away, officer." _Please don't be an idiot_, he silently begged.

"I'm warning you, Commander." The C-Sec officer reached for his pistol. "We can do this the easy way or-"

_Fuck. Another idiot. Why doesn't anybody ever take my offer and walk away? _

Shepard cut him off with a lightning quick blow to the face, even as he smashed the longneck on the bar with his other hand. Wrapping his forearm around the stunned C-Sec officer's throat, Shepard swung the man's body in front of him to use as a human shield and threw the razor-sharp broken bottle at one of the turians. The turian made a sick gargling noise as he tried to cover the jagged gash in his ruined throat with his clawed hands but before he even hit the floor, Shepard had drawn his customized hand cannon and dropped the rest of the C-Sec officers in the bar. His geth-customized weapon cut through their flimsy standard-issue barriers like they weren't even there.

Hearing shouting, Shepard instinctively swung his human shield in the direction of one of the entrances and felt a flurry of rounds pepper the man, cutting through his barriers and shredding his torso. _One round left. _Shepard emptied his hand cannon into the face of the first officer that ran through the door and shoved the dead man in his arm into the next two. While they were momentarily stunned, Shepard rammed the butt of his empty weapon up into the nose of the one on the right, forcing the bone fragments up into his brain cavity and killing him instantly. The final thing the last C-Sec officer ever saw in his life was his dead colleague's pistol pointing in his face as Shepard pulled the trigger.

Wary of more enemies bursting into the room, Shepard quickly reloaded his hand cannon and retreated behind the bar for cover but it seemed he was alone. Strewn around him were the lifeless bodies of twelve C-Sec agents. Finally allowing himself to catch a breath, Shepard slumped against the back of the bar. _Did you really need to do that? They were just following orders._ Against the elite training and enhanced strength and reflexes of a Spectre, the C-Sec officers hadn't stood a chance. The 'upgrades' Cerberus had given to Shepard when they rebuilt him in the Lazarus Project only tilted the scales further. _Of course you did. You can't afford to be dragged back to the Citadel. How well do you think you could fight the Reapers while locked in a six by eight cell?_

Shepard ran his fingers through his hair. He'd have to call Miranda for a pickup in case the Council had sent more men. He cursed himself for not having been more careful. Now the _Normandy _would have to swing out into the Minthras system to pick him up, risking detection and a possible confrontation with the Council ship that had landed the unfortunate C-Sec officers on Minthras IV.

Turning on his omnitool, Shepard stepped out of the bar and began walking briskly away from the gruesome scene. Minthras IV had no real law enforcement, but it still wouldn't do to draw more attention to himself by hanging out at the site of a massacre. He punched in an encrypted extranet message to Miranda, hoping the _Normandy_ was close enough for a quick pickup.

A bright flash caught his eye. As Shepard looked up into the hills where it had come from, he realized too late he'd made a fatal mistake. _The C-Sec officers were a decoy. _Whoever was hunting him had used them as pawns to flush him out. _Damnit – it wasn't supposed to end like this… _The sniper's round struck him in the chest, knocking him off his feet but to Shepard's surprise it didn't even penetrate through the front of his shirt. _ What the hell…? _As he reached for it with his hand to brush it off, the metallic canister suddenly lit up. _Oh crap. _The shock of two hundred thousand volts hit him like a sky train. His augmented muscles fought against the current but two more canisters struck him and he blacked out.


	2. Chapter 1

Jacob Taylor flipped the page in his fresh copy of _Avengers Reborn: The Return of Black Widow_, gingerly holding the comic book in his hands so he didn't tear or crease the paper. He still preferred the comics published prior to First Contact, before over-ambitious writers had decided it'd be a good idea to retcon the backstory of every comic franchise to account for the existence of the Council races, but he had to admit that the new art style of the various reboots had their own appeal. _Not too sure about the storylines though… _He laughed at the writer's attempts to make the idea of Natalia Romanova seducing a krogan mercenary believable. _I'd be surprised if this guy had ever even seen a krogan in real life. _

"Jacob, do you have those survey reports I asked for?"

Jacob relaxed his abdominal muscles, feeling a slight burn as he lowered his torso to look at Miranda. He tilted his head slightly to the side to prevent all the blood from rushing to his brain.

"Yeah, finished them last night. I forwarded them to you this morning."

He turned his attention back to his comic book as he pulled his upper body up in another inverted sit up. _Two hundred fifty-six… Forty-four left to go. _

"Oh… I must have missed it then."

A few months ago, those would have been the last words Jacob would have expected to hear from Miranda's mouth but it seemed lately, phrases like that had been becoming more and more common. _Probably has something to do with a certain resurrected Spectre._ Jacob had been a bit jealous of how easily Shepard had been able to form a connection with Miranda that he never could but he'd managed to get over it. Despite the awkward way his own aborted relationship with Miranda had fizzled out, he still considered her a close friend – _as close a friend as anyone can be in this business, at least _- and he was happy that she had found someone.

_Two hundred fifty-seven…_

The last few weeks had been hard on everyone. The crew of the _Normandy_ hadn't served together for very long, but under Shepard's leadership they had become a close-knit group and seeing all the empty bunks after the raid on the Collector station had been difficult. Miranda and Shepard's relationship had gone through a few rough patches since then as well, but they both seemed to really want to make it work so Jacob wasn't overly concerned. It was almost amusing at times to watch how awkward they could be around each other, neither of them exactly sure how a 'normal' relationship was supposed to work.

_Two hundred fifty-eight… Two hundred fifty-nine… _Jacob realized Miranda was still standing there in his armoury.

"Jacob… can I ask you something?" she asked hesitantly. Jacob arched an eyebrow. _Am I going to like this question?_

"Sure, what's up?"

"Do you think I pushed him to go too fast, too soon?"

'_Him' being Shepard. Damn it, Miranda, I'm your friend, not your girlfriend. _Jacob sighed. _Maybe I shouldn't be so hard on her. With the crew still so short-staffed and everyone being so busy, it's not like either of us really has anybody else to talk to besides each other. _

"What do you mean?" Jacob asked cautiously, hoping they could get this conversation over with quickly before it became too uncomfortable.

Miranda cleared a workbench and sat down. _Great. So she's planning to stick around for a bit. _

"I've been trying to get him to open up to me. I've been doing some reading and apparently maintaining clear lines of communication that can facilitate the open exchange of information is the key to a healthy relationship."

Jacob resisted the urge to laugh.

"What?"

"Miranda, only you could make advice from 'Dear Dinah' sound like a field briefing."

Miranda straightened in her seat in surprise. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said defensively. Jacob ignored her protests.

"Didn't you ever stop to think that maybe advice from extranet relationship columns is meant for… normal people?"

Miranda looked confused. "I don't follow…"

"People like us – you, me, Shepard – we see information the same way a drowning man sees water and we treat emotions like they're baseball bats other people can use to beat us with. In fact, I think _you_ were the one who taught me to think that way." The blood was really rushing to his head and Jacob paused to do another sit-up to force it back down. _Two hundred sixty._ "We're not wired for 'open exchanges of information'. Think about how long it took you to tell me you hated chick holoflicks."

Miranda laughed at the memory.

"I guess that little bit of information could have saved both of us a great deal of misery." Miranda sighed and frowned. "I wish he hadn't run off like he did though."

Jacob did the best approximation of a shrug he could, hanging upside down.

"Just give him some time. Man needs his space. When he's ready to share what's eating him, I'm sure he'll find you."

The frown left Miranda's face as she forced a smile. She didn't look completely convinced, but at least he'd tried.

"Thank you, Jacob. I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Go bug Joker?"

This earned him a genuine laugh as she threw a towel at him.

"You can be really insufferable at times."

Miranda's omnitool beeped to indicate she'd received a priority message. Her expression darkened as she read it.

"What is it?"

"It's Shepard. C-Sec came for him on Minthras IV and he's calling for an immediate pickup."

_C-Sec's out here? Looking for Shepard in the Terminus? _Jacob unclipped himself from the inversion rack he'd been hanging from and dropped to the deck.

"Find Garrus and make plans for a covert insertion and extraction. I'll go tell Joker to lay a course for the nearest relay and get the crew to battle stations. I don't want to be surprised if there's a Council fleet waiting for us." Miranda-the-confused-relationship-novice had instantly morphed into Miranda-the-battle-hardened-Cerberus-super-agent. Jacob hurriedly pulled on a shirt and nodded in acknowledgment but she had already left the armoury on her way to the cockpit. Grabbing his gear, he made his way to the _Normandy_'s main lift. _So much for downtime. _

_

* * *

_

"So you're the infamous Commander John Shepard. I always wanted to meet you in person but I never thought it'd be like this."

Shepard slowly opened his eyelids and instantly regretted it as he found himself staring into a bright light. He was suspended by his wrists, thick metal cuffs forcing his arms out over his head. A matching set bound his ankles and he felt the smooth coolness of something metal around his throat. He tested his binds and felt a mild shock in his neck. S_hock restraint. I probably don't want to try that again. _

He blinked a few times to clear his head and as the light became less intense, the first thing he saw was a pair of unblinking lavender, avian eyes staring back at him. When his eyes began to focus, he was able to make out the blurry outline of a turian clad in dark blue armour standing in front of him with its arms crossed. The distinctive emblem of an inverted, stylized chevron enclosed in a circle was visible on its chestplate. _Another turian Spectre. This day just keeps getting better and better._

"Sorry about the Incapacitator rounds, but I doubted standard concussion rounds would have made much of an impact on you. I get them custom-made by a friend and he tends to be a little overenthusiastic with the voltage."

The turian's voice had the distinctive metallic flange of its species but there was something slightly off about it. It was less gravelly than Shepard was used to with turians, and as his vision finally returned to normal, he noticed the frills behind its head seemed less prominent and it was shorter and more slightly built than most turians he'd encountered.

"You're female…" he blurted out without thinking. To Shepard's surprise the turian Spectre laughed. Humour wasn't a trait other species normally associated with turians and he suddenly realized this was probably the first turian he had seen genuinely laugh other than Garrus.

"And you're male. Or at least that's what your file says."

_Fantastic. A turian Spectre who thinks she's a comedian. _

"Great. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, how about you let me down and tell me why you shot me with your… Incapacitator rounds, you called them?"

The turian uncrossed her arms and leaned against the wall.

"I thought Officer Winslow told you before you killed him. I'm bringing you in for the murder of Spectre Tela Vasir and treason against the Citadel Council. Oh, I'm Ihlaran Tuasser, but you can just call me Ihla."

Ihla briefly flashed a Spectre identification holo implanted in her palm. "Now that I've answered your question, maybe you could answer a few of mine-"

"Shepard, Commander, Service Number: N7-11285-M2172," Shepard interrupted her.

"What?"

Shepard shrugged the best he could with his arms stretched above him.

"Name, rank, and serial number. My drill sergeant drummed it into us on the first day of boot camp – that's the only information we're permitted to give our captors under Article VII of the Systems Alliance Prisoner of War Code of Conduct. Don't you turians have anything like that?"

The bony plate over Ihla's eye arched up in surprise at his response. _Good, she's off-balance. Probably isn't used to prisoners talking back at her. _In his own experience, people were usually so terrified of Spectres that just the casual flashing of an ID would make them spill their guts.

"You're not an Alliance soldier anymore, Shepard. You're a Spectre."

"Oh? My mistake then. Shepard, Spectre, Citadel Council Special Tactics and Reconnaissance Branch Operative ID: 4586-72A."

"You know I could always torture you if you want."

_Something's not right. _Instead of looking frustrated, as Shepard had hoped, Ihla had an expression on her face that looked suspiciously like amusement. _Too late to change my approach, but if this is some sort of game, I might as well play along. _

"I'm usually up for experimenting with the kinky stuff, but unfortunately Citadel Conventions forbid the use of physical coercion to extract information from prisoners of war."

Ihla's mouth split open in what Shepard took to be the turian equivalent of a smug grin.

"We're Spectres. The Citadel Conventions don't apply to us. It's in the Spectre regulations you were given upon your recruitment, right after 'Dear recruit, the first rule of being a Spectre is that there are no rules'."

Shepard couldn't help but chuckle.

"Does it actually say that?"

"The first part? Yes, but I added the second part myself. You were supposed to go over the whole document before you received your official credentials."

"I couldn't find the time. I was a little preoccupied trying to save the galaxy from a rogue Spectre. What was his name again? Saroch? Sarleen? It was something turian, anyway." _If this doesn't knock her off her guard, I don't know what will. _The fact it had been a prominent _turian_ Spectre who had betrayed the Council and a _human_ who had stopped him was still a sore point for most turians.

Ihla didn't seem the least bit perturbed. She scratched one talon against the side of her mandible thoughtfully, then nodded.

"The Spectre handbook is a little long. Tell you the truth, I really only skimmed over it myself. And as for that rogue Spectre, I think the name you were looking for was Saren, Saren Arterius."

"Thanks. My memory isn't what it used to be," Shepard growled through gritted teeth. _So the Saren angle didn't work. Now what?_

"You're welcome. Now, about my questions. The Council gave me a whole list of things I was supposed to interrogate you about, but since we only just met, I'll take it slow. What happened with Tela Vasir? Why did you kill her?"

_Because she tried to kill my friend and I first, after blowing up the Dracon Trade Centre on Illium. Oh, and she was working for the Shadow Broker. Yeah, I'm sure she'll buy that. _Even if Ihla did believe his story, that would only force him to answer questions about Liara. _I doubt revealing Liara's status as the new Shadow Broker would be a very good idea at this point. _

"We had a disagreement. She said Nessinia Lorne was the greatest athlete in the history of the galaxy. I argued it was Gretzky. She said my hair looked stupid. I called her a squidhead. She stormed off, stepped on a rake that knocked her out cold, and smashed her head open on my kitchen counter," Shepard answered sarcastically.

"I would believe you, but that part about keeping a rake in your kitchen is a bit much. A rake is some sort of human gardening implement, isn't it?"

_What the hell is wrong with this turian? Was she dropped on her head as a baby? _Ihla's omnitool flashed and she put one finger to the transceiver in her auditory receptor. She nodded a few times to whoever was on the other end and spoke a few hushed words back in some turian dialect Shepard couldn't quite make out. Ending the exchange, she turned her attention back to him.

"I'd love to keep this conversation going, but apparently our ride has arrived so I'm going to have to cut this short. I apologize in advance for what I'm about to do."

Shepard was confused for a moment until his shock restraints crackled again with electrical charge. _Not again. _

"Sleep tight, Shepard."

* * *

Jacob gripped his assault rifle tightly as the shuttle cleared Minthras IV's upper atmosphere. Orbital scans from the _Normandy_ hadn't shown the presence of hostile forces planetside, but it didn't pay to be careless. When Shepard hadn't responded to any of their hails, Miranda had taken him and Garrus down in the shuttle to take a closer look. Jacob would have suggested a bigger team, but with the other remaining survivors of Shepard's ad hoc combat team having all left the _Normandy_ shortly after the Collector mission, there had been no one else they could bring. The Cerberus crew all had basic weapons training, but they weren't trained soldiers and wouldn't have been much help in an ambush.

Plummeting towards the ground in almost a vertical dive, Jacob felt the familiar sensation of weightlessness imposed by negative G forces as the shuttle's VI followed a pre-programmed combat insertion flight profile.

"Two thousand metres!" Garrus shouted at him as he opened the shuttle door and readied the mounted machine gun. The turian had insisted on installing weaponry in the _Normandy_'s Kodiak shuttles, considering the Alliance's refusal to do so in stock versions of the Kodiak to be a ridiculous oversight. Jacob turned around so Miranda could do a final check on his equipment loadout and did the same for her when she finished.

"One thousand!"

Grabbing a handhold, he braced himself against the forward bulkhead. Jacob could see the lights of the small mining town laid out beneath them. In the cover of night with the sound dampeners muffling the engines, the shuttle was basically invisible to anybody on the ground. Nonetheless, Garrus was sweeping his gun back and forth, scanning for potential threats on the ground with his visor.

Negative G's suddenly turned into positive G's, crushing Jacob into the deck as the shuttle's auxiliary lift engines kicked in, stopping the shuttle about two hundred feet off the ground. Nodding to him, Miranda jumped out of the shuttle, a faint, shimmering blue field briefly flaring from her body in the darkness as she used her biotics to slow her descent.

Jacob took a deep breath, stepped up to the open door, and followed her. _Why didn't I just bring a parachute? _Having split his time in training between special forces and biotics, he had never developed the same confidence in his abilities that a fully-trained biotic like Miranda did and the thought of slamming into the ground face first because his biotics had failed him flashed through his mind briefly as he tightened his muscles. To his relief, he felt a tingling sensation in his extremities and the ground appeared to be rushing up far more slowly. Falling back on his training, he reoriented himself in the air and landed softly on the ground. Miranda's voice crackled in his earpiece.

"We're in. Garrus, take the shuttle back up and assume an orbiting pattern above the target area so you can cover us from the air. The town looks quiet from here, but we may be walking into an ambush."

"Acknowledged, Garrus out," the turian replied and the shuttle disappeared back into the dark sky. Miranda approached him cautiously, still wary of a potential ambush.

"What do you think?"

Jacob frowned and adjusted the optics on his headset. She was far more experienced in matters of cloak-and-dagger work, but pure combat situations like covert insertions into potential hot landing zones was his area of expertise. They had landed on the southern outskirts of the settlement, in an open area he guessed was a makeshift emergency landing pad. The town was surrounded by hills on its other three sides, but the side they'd landed on was mostly flat, with few places potential ambushers could hide. _If somebody was waiting for us, we'd have seen them by now. _

"I think we're clear. The location of Shepard's last transmission should be just ahead, about two kilometres north of us on the east side of town."

Miranda seemed to relax a little.

"We can probably just walk into town then. It would look more suspicious if we kept sneaking about."

Jacob nodded. They weren't dressed like miners, but the _Normandy _had stealthily trailed a freighter into orbit that had been bringing in replacement personnel which included some support staff. _Hopefully we won't stand out too much. _

The walk into town was short but tense. Neither of them needed to voice their fears. _Anyone sharp enough to get the drop on Shepard might have left someone behind to watch for would-be rescuers_.

"Shepard was standing right about here when he sent his last communication."

Miranda snorted and Jacob followed her gaze to a rundown building with a sign over the doorway reading, 'The Thresher's Maw: Bar and Grill'.

"How original," Miranda muttered. She waved for Jacob to follow her inside. "Maybe someone inside has seen our intrepid hero."

* * *

The bar was surprisingly loud, despite being only half full. Some batarian music with a pulsing beat that sounded like rap was blaring out of a set of cheap speakers mounted above the bar and small groups of grubby, half-drunk miners were clustered around tables haphazardly scattered around the room. _Apparently poor taste in music is a universal affliction_, Miranda thought to herself in disgust. A few human patrons noticed her entering and directed catcalls in her direction. From the looks of the place, she couldn't imagine it saw many female visitors.

Miranda weaved between the tables to the bar where a single batarian stood manning the taps. He looked at her and Jacob suspiciously, seemed to ponder whether he should call the bouncers to kick them out, then finally appeared to settle on finding out what they wanted first.

"What can I getcha?"

"Information," Miranda answered with a glare. The batarian snorted.

"That'll cost ya. Tell me what you wanna know and I'll tell you just how much."

"There was another human that passed through here a week, a friend of ours. We'd like to know if you've seen him," Jacob said, bringing up a holo of Shepard on his omnitool. The batarian's eyes grew wide.

"I don't know anything."

Miranda gave Jacob a look. _Well… he's certainly not hiding anything. The only question is, how much is he 'not hiding'? _They'd been working together long enough that Jacob picked up on what she was thinking.

"We can pay you."

The batarian laughed nervously.

"Not enough to open my mouth about things that aren't my business."

"We can pay you a lot," Jacob said, pulling out a few thousand-credit chips and playing with them for emphasis.

"Twenty thousand credits and I never want to see you two in here again."

"We'll negotiate the final amount when you-"

_He knows enough. Negotiations over. _

Miranda reached over the bar and grabbed the batarian by the throat, easily lifting him off the ground with one arm.

"How about you tell us everything you know or I tear out your spine and beat you to death with it?"

The sound of chairs being overturned caused her to turn her head. The miners in the bar had risen to their feet and were surrounding them menacingly, led by two particularly intimidating-looking bouncers.

"Maybe we should have taken a more subtle approach before resorting to the threats this time," Jacob whispered to her through gritted teeth. Miranda ignored him. _Shepard's out there somewhere, probably getting dragged back to the Citadel even now and we're here wasting time with a bunch of moronic thugs. I'm going to find him – no matter what it takes. _She felt her frustration and anger raging inside her and she funnelled it into her biotics. She heard a faint buzzing in her ears as the field built up around her, waves of blue-shifting dark energy flaring from her body.

"Who wants to die first?" Miranda snarled at the mob. The men surrounding them jumped back at her display and several of them looked at each other uncertainly before they all seemed to reach the same conclusion about taking on a psychotic biotic and dispersed. The immediate danger dealt with, Miranda turned her attention back to the bartender she was still gripping by the neck.

"Now, tell me everything or I'll demonstrate how easy it is to crush a man into pulp with a flick of my wrist."

The batarian made a choking sound as Miranda began to crush his windpipe. She felt Jacob's hand on her shoulder and saw the warning look he gave her – _He's no good to us dead _– and reluctantly dropped him. The batarian gave her a dirty look and began rubbing his neck. Miranda drew her pistol and rested the barrel right between his four eyes.

"Okay! Okay! I'll talk!" The bartender put up his hands in surrender. "About three days ago your friend was in here having a drink when a bunch of guys showed up. They identified themselves as C-Sec and said they were there to bring him in. He tried to warn them off but when one of them actually went for a gun, your friend killed all of them."

"Then what happened?" Miranda demanded, letting her pistol fall slightly but keeping it trained.

"I don't know! I was hiding so I didn't see anything. When I finally came out, my bar was covered in blood, there were bodies everywhere, and your friend was gone."

"What happened to the bodies?"

"A few hours after your friend disappeared, a human and two turians showed up and offered me ten thousand credits to close the bar for the day. When I came back the next morning, the bodies were gone and they'd scrubbed the place clean."

_More C-Sec probably. But that doesn't tell us anything. _Miranda fixed the batarian with a cold stare for a moment but unless he was an incredible actor, she could tell he had told them everything. _Damnit. We already knew Shepard was attacked by C-Sec. Dead end. _

"Maybe somebody else saw something," Jacob offered, as if he were reading her thoughts.

The bartender shook his head.

"I doubt it. Your friend has been here a few times over the years. He doesn't think we know, but everyone around here knows who he is. Even out here in the ass end of the Terminus, everyone can recognize the 'Hero of the Citadel'. The difference between us and people in more 'civilized' parts is we can tell when a man wants to be left alone. When it's a Spectre who's the one looking for privacy, nobody around here is going to be stupid enough to deny him."

"So if everyone can recognize him, wouldn't somebody have seen something?" Jacob asked confusedly.

"Most people here are just miners trying to scratch out a living. When a Spectre looking for privacy starts shooting, we run in the opposite direction. We're not stupid, human," the bartender said in an irritated tone.

Jacob looked over at her and shook his head. Pulling out a five thousand credit chip, he dropped it on the bar and left the batarian with a warning.

"If you tell anybody we were here, we'll come back and torch this place."

"With you in it," Miranda added loudly enough so everyone in the bar could hear. The bar was quiet enough to hear a pin drop as they walked out, disappearing back into the night.


	3. Chapter 2

"What the hell was that?"

Miranda let out a frustrated sigh, closing her eyes and bowing her head as she leaned against the cool metal of the long briefing table in the comm room.

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know? That entire town's probably talking about us right now. Would have been more subtle if we'd just suspended a flashing billboard from the shuttle," Jacob said angrily.

"You bribed him. Maybe he'll keep quiet. We did warn him against reporting our presence," Miranda offered weakly, disgusted with herself for offering up the excuse the second it left her lips.

"Yeah, I bribed the _bartender_. I didn't bribe everyone else in the bar that saw that trick you did with the glowing eyes and the blue-shifting light display. Whoever grabbed Shepard knew what they were doing. That means-"

"That they probably left someone behind to watch for pursuers." Miranda completed his sentence for him.

"Yeah, and if they spotted us, we just lost the only advantage we had – surprise. We've got to assume they know who we are now. They could throw out false leads, go to ground, lay a trap, take a vacation somewhere sipping fruity drinks from fucking coconuts while watching us stumble around…"

_How dare you… _Miranda flashed an angry look in Jacob's direction. _But you know he's right, don't you? _

"Fine. I screwed up. I admit it. Is that what you wanted? A confession? Well you got it!" She slammed her palm into the table hard enough to make it shake on its mountings. She felt hot, angry tears forming in her eyes and she tried to blink them back but failed. _I lost my cool. I let my emotions get the better of my judgment. I failed my mission. I failed Shepard. _The fear of losing him after all they had been through, just as she was starting to realize how much he meant to her, suddenly gripped and crushed her heart like an icy hand.

Seeing her tears gave Jacob pause enough that he stopped berating her and his eyes lost some of their hard edge.

"Miranda, I'm sorry," he said gruffly, but she could hear his voice softening. "I was just blowing off steam. We both could have handled the situation down there better."

Miranda silently cursed him for easing up on her and herself for letting him see her weakness. After working so hard to prove to Jacob and to everyone else that she, a woman who'd grown up wealthy and pampered, could be just as tough, just as pragmatic, and just as ruthless as any man, she was going to let him see her bawl her eyes out like a scared schoolgirl. _No. _

She brought a hand up to her face as if she was rubbing her temples and subtly wiped away the tears as she lowered it again. Through years of practice, her voice steadied and she looked straight into Jacob's eyes.

"Yes, _I_ could have handled it better but I didn't and we will have to face the consequences and adapt. In any case, we learned little and we could have learned nothing more even if I hadn't let my anger and frustration blow our cover," she said coolly. "Shepard is crucial to our overall mission – finding a way to stop the Reapers. Agents of the Citadel Council have abducted him. We will get him back. Do you have any suggestions?"

"We might be able to take advantage of what you two stirred up down there," Garrus said, leaning against the frame of the comm room doorway. She turned her head in surprise and saw Jacob do the same. _How does he move so quietly? _ From the moment they'd recruited him on Omega, Garrus had spoken rarely except to offer the occasional suggestion on mission planning. It seemed both of them had completely forgotten about the presence of the turian.

"What do you mean?" Jacob asked, recovering first.

"Shepard was taken less than four days ago. It took us three days to arrive in this system from the relay five systems over and the _Normandy_ is one of the fastest military frigates in the galaxy. Unless whoever took Shepard was using another stealth frigate, they used slower civilian transport."

"How do you know?"

Garrus' eyes flickered between his two human crewmates.

"The Braxis cluster is neutral space. The Citadel fleets don't patrol these systems and none of the non-Citadel-aligned powers do either. If Shepard and that bartender were right and it was someone sent by the Council who grabbed him, they're going to have to go back through that relay to bring him back to the Citadel. If they know the _Normandy_ is after them, they'll have to suspect that we'll track down their ship eventually with our superior speed and…"

"They'll have to go to ground somewhere to hide from us or to switch ships," Jacob finished the thought. Garrus' mandibles twitched in what passed for a turian grin.

"You two aren't the quickest shots in the legion, but I figured you'd catch on eventually. Now assuming they've found out we're chasing them and assuming their ship is slower than ours, we can limit our search radius to systems they could have reached within three days – the time that's elapsed since Shepard was grabbed."

Miranda tried to find any holes in Garrus' reasoning but despite finding none, she frowned.

"But if we're wrong and Shepard's captors don't know about us, they'll head straight for the relay while we waste time searching each system in the search radius. We'll have to split up and have the _Normandy _patrol the area around the relay to account for that possibility while another team conducts the search." She glanced over at Jacob. "I'll stay on the _Normandy_ and provide intelligence and tactical support. Jacob, you and Garrus will take a shuttle and go look for Shepard."

"You don't need to stay on the _Normandy_, Miranda. Joker and the crew can watch the relay without you directing them," Jacob countered. Miranda shook her head.

"I already let my emotions compromise the mission once. I won't risk that happening again. I'd be a liability if I joined the two of you. You don't need me for this mission, Jacob. I trust you to bring John – Shepard back," she said, chastising herself for slipping up again. _Damnit. What have you done to me, John? _

Garrus nodded and put a clawed hand on Jacob's shoulder.

"She's right. We can move faster and draw less suspicion with only two of us anyway. Humans are uncommon on most of the worlds in this cluster."

Jacob reluctantly relented.

"If he's out there I'll get him back."

Miranda bit her lip and cast her eyes downward to avoid making eye contact with Jacob.

"I know you will, Jacob."

_If only I could be as sure as my words sound. Where are you, John?_

_

* * *

_

Shepard coughed and thrashed in his restraints as a bucket of ice cold water was thrown over him, waking him from his fitful sleep.

"Christ, you turians do that too? Or did you just copy that from watching too many bad human prison vids?"

Ihla shrugged as she sauntered into his field of vision.

"Take your guess. I figured it was gentler than hitting you with another shot of the shock restraints."

Shepard shook the water out of his hair and looked up at her. He noticed his surroundings had changed. Instead of the bare concrete walls he had found himself staring at the first time Ihla had woken him, he was now looking at smooth metal bulkheads, probably those of a spaceship.

"Cerberus came after you faster than I thought they would. A ship resembling the _Normandy _arrived over Minthras IV yesterday. It's nice that they rebuilt the frigate that led the Arcturus fleet at the Battle of the Citadel – I didn't realize the Illusive Man could be so sentimental. I can't say I'm crazy about the paint job though."

"I wanted tiger stripes but the Illusive Man wouldn't go for it. He said they would make it look too juvenile," Shepard responded dryly. Ihla arched an eyebrow.

"I like how you think but he might have a point there." She slowly walked up to him and brought up a holovid on her omnitool, holding it in front of his face.

"An agent I left behind saw these two enter the bar where Winslow and his men first found you in. Apparently they caused quite a commotion."

Shepard saw the images of two humans walking into the bar. _Commotion? What does that mean? _He frowned as he recognized them as Jacob and… _Miranda! _As the recording continued, he saw the distinctive flash of biotics through the door and windows of the bar. _No, it can't be, Miranda would keep a low profile, stay low key and look for clues. _He turned his attention back to the holovid but the recording stopped. _She must be distracted but by what? What could cause the imperturbable Miranda Lawson to lose her cool? _The sudden quickening of his heart beating in his chest provided his answer and his eyes widened.

"If I remember correctly from the briefing, the male is one Jacob Taylor, ex-Alliance special forces and the pretty one is… the name eludes me but oh," Ihla made a show of noticing Shepard's vital signs on a biomonitor mounted on the wall. "It seems your pulse and respiratory rate just went up. I wonder why…"

Shepard realized his own body had betrayed his thoughts but fell back on his training to still his thoughts and bring his traitorous biosigns back under control.

"You paused the inflight entertainment right when it was getting to the good part. Combined with the lack of proper meal service and creature comforts, it really shouldn't surprise you that I'm feeling a bit stressed. I might have to speak with a manager when we land," he said nonchalantly, feigning indifference the best he could. He doubted it was good enough.

"There were scattered sightings of you and this woman together on Illium and Bekenstein. I'm not really that familiar with human courtship behaviour, but from what I saw, the two of you seemed… close."

Ihla's eyes were fixed on him, her avian features giving her the unsettling appearance of an eagle eyeing its prey.

"I wish I could remember her name, but I'm sure you know it quite well."

"You're giving me too much credit. As a highly decorated war hero and the face of humanity, I'm never really ever lacking in female company. I've taken to handing out nametags so I know who they are in the morning." He flashed his trademark smile, the one he pulled out for photo ops with the press. _Keep your cool, John. She's with Jacob and they both know what they're doing. _

Ihla laughed knowingly. _She thinks she's winning. _

"Then I'll be sure to have my killteam return her nametag to you so you can remember."

It was only the hint of a sudden outtake of breath, but it was all the encouragement the Spectre needed to keep pressing.

"Don't worry, it should still be legible. I've heard red is much easier to wash off than blue, although it's been a while since my team has killed a human."

_She's bluffing. Keep your head, soldier, and think of something else. _

"You shouldn't be surprised that I'd leave more than just a single, lonely observer on Minthras IV. I knew someone would come after you and I wanted to leave a proper welcome for them. Wouldn't you have done the same?"

_No… _Miranda was too experienced, too cunning and too clever to fall into such a clumsy trap. Her instincts were too well honed for her to be caught off guard by anything. _Unless her mind was on something – or someone – other than her mission. _

His shell cracked like it had been struck by a hammer. Burning rage flashed in his eyes. He knew the Spectre was trying to provoke him but suddenly he didn't care.

"What do you want?" he snarled. The teasing tone left Ihla's voice.

"I want you to tell me what you were really doing with Cerberus."

"Why the hell would I tell you anything?"

He strained at his bonds and heard the chains anchoring him to the bulkhead groan against the superhuman strength of his rippling muscles but they held.

"Because you want to know what happened to your girlfriend. I'll show you the rest of this recording if you cooperate with me."

"She's not my girlfriend and I don't care if you sit there and show me the entire Blasto trilogy end-to-end. I'm not telling you shit." He felt his voice trembling and he swallowed to steady it before he spoke his next words. "She could be dead anyway. They both could. Seeing your recording wouldn't change anything."

Ihla laughed and he could hear a cruelty in her voice completely at odds with what he'd seen of her thus far.

"You're a terrible liar, Shepard – surprising for a former Spectre of your renown. Even if seeing the rest of the vid changed nothing, you would still want to know. I might not know much about your relationship with this woman, but I know that you care about her…"

"You fucking bitch," he spat with a bitterness that surprised him. "Fine! I'll give you what you want."

The turian smiled, showing her needle-like teeth as she did.

"As you should already know, since I told the Council this, I was investigating attacks on human colonies in the Terminus systems."

"And what were the results of your investigation?"

"We discovered it was the Collectors." He glanced at Ihla for any signs of scepticism but unexpectedly, there were none.

"How did you determine that?"

"We caught up to them on Horizon and engaged them, just as they were attempting to abduct the human colonists there."

"Continue." The turian continued to regard him intently with that unnerving alien stare.

"We eventually managed to devise a means of following the Collectors through the Omega-4 relay…"

"How did you manage that? No one has managed to travel through the Omega-4 relay and make it back, at least not in recorded history," Ihla interrupted him.

_And here's where the tale unravels and takes a leap into the realm of the fantasy. _Shepard sighed. _Guess I'd have to follow Alice down the rabbit hole eventually. _

"We recovered a functioning IFF device from a defunct Reaper."

Ihla narrowed her eyes and said nothing for a moment.

"Where?"

"Orbiting Mnemosyne, in the Thorne system," he said quickly, almost stumbling over his words in surprise at the lack of reaction Ihla had had to his mention of the Reapers. Ihla entered something into her omnitool and nodded for him to continue.

"Using the IFF we were able to travel through the Omega-4 relay, as I said, where we found a massive space station the Collectors were operating from. Taking a small team with me, we infiltrated into the heart of the station where we found that the Collectors were liquefying the captured colonists as raw material to create a new Reaper. After destroying the Reaper and neutralizing the Collectors, we managed to escape back through the relay. That was a little over two weeks ago."

"What have you been doing since then?"

Shepard laughed bitterly. _Alternating between driving the woman I care about more than anyone else in the galaxy insane with my moping and trying to drown my nightmares in prodigious amounts of scotch. _

"Making up my losses and following leads on the Reapers," he lied.

Ihla brushed her talon against her mandible, a gesture Shepard recognized from their last conversation that he guessed was a habitual action she performed when she was thinking.

"I don't know if you're lying, Shepard. Your bio readouts say 'no' and my instincts tell me you're not, but you're highly trained and obviously very capable. I'll have to cross-check some of this with other intelligence." She broke eye contact momentarily and took out a small holodisplay, setting it down in front of him. "Nevertheless, for the moment I must honour our agreement."

She transferred the recording on her omnitool to the holodisplay and unpaused it.

"Your friends escaped the bar alive. From what my agent told me, the bar's patrons and employees were unscathed as well but only just."

Ihla turned as if to walk away but then paused to look back at him.

"Your friends are tenacious and they are determined to recover you. But I earned my place as a Spectre. I don't intend to return to the Citadel empty-handed."

* * *

Jacob's eyes met Garrus' briefly and he saw the turian nod slightly as he turned his attention back to the objective. He felt a bead of sweat roll down his forehead, tracing a trail around his eyebrow, continuing down his temple and cheek before dripping to the floor, its impact deafening in his mind as he tried to concentrate. He cursed silently, hoping no one had noticed it and taken it as a sign of weakness. _There aren't many humans around here. Maybe they won't recognize it. _Their adversaries had been skilled, but nonetheless Jacob had dispatched each of them in turn until now there remained only one. Their past two days of searching had turned up nothing. After tracking two false leads earlier in the day, he hoped this one would bear some fruit.

Garrus had already bowed out of the contest, the veteran former C-Sec officer's specialized skillset and instincts unsuited for a situation like this. Jacob could hear the turian breathing heavily and could see the frustration in his eyes at having been bested like this.

"So what's it going to be? You can still walk away," the woman across from him said with an unconvincing sneer. _Her position isn't any better than mine at this point. Just gotta hold it together and keep her guessing._

"Shut up and give me my card," Jacob snarled. The woman slid it across the table to him. She might have been attractive once, but she'd obviously abused her body badly over the years and it showed. _Or at least I think it shows… hard to tell with asari sometimes. _

_Twenty-eight. I've already got four cards down. Time to call it? _His opponent flashed him a toothy grin. She had five cards lying facedown in front of her. _What are the chances she's closer to thirty? I've probably got most of the high cards in her deck. What are the chances I can get a three or less in the next round? _

He looked over at Garrus again but the turian's expression was blank. Garrus wasn't a typical turian, but in games of chance his thinking remained too rigid and predictable for him to be of much help. Though the turian would have been loath to admit it, his time in the turian military and C-Sec had robbed him of some of his creativity and initiative. The decision – and its consequences – would be Jacob's. _Screw it. _

"Show'em," he said loudly and clearly, hoping his voice didn't sound as nervous as he felt. The woman flipped her cards over one by one, dramatically drawing out each flip as she did so. _Four… Twelve… Fifteen… _ _Twenty-five… Twenty-seven!_

Jacob didn't bother to draw out the suspense as he flipped all his cards over.

"Twenty-eight!" he announced proudly. Garrus' seemed to slump in his chair as he finally released the tension in his muscles. The smirk disappeared from his opponent's face. For a second Jacob thought she was going to just set her bodyguards on them but she finally tossed an optical storage disc in front of him.

"Good game. Maybe we can have a rematch sometime," the asari said with a chilliness that didn't match her words. Jacob didn't allow himself to exhale until the information broker had left the booth with her entourage.

"I really thought they had you in that last round. But then again, I thought they had you in the round before that too. I can't say the round before that one was looking great either…"

"Yeah, I get it. It was a pretty big risk but I think the prize was worth it," Jacob said, ignoring Garrus' chiding tone. Garrus arched the crest above his eye.

"You bet our shuttle in a gambling game you picked up yesterday."

Jacob shrugged.

"It wasn't that different from quasar."

"I know quasar. That wasn't quasar. How'd you figure it out so quickly?"

Jacob scooped up the OSD and tucked it into his pocket, trying to suppress a grin. He'd just beaten out nine other buyers in a four-hour card game he'd learned in less than a day to get at the information contained on the OSD, making it difficult to keep a straight face.

"Beginner's luck."

It was obvious the turian didn't believe him. Jacob gestured towards the exit as he pulled on his jacket. _Best to get out of here before we get any more looks. _Garrus had been right about there hardly being any humans in most of the systems of the cluster. He hadn't seen another human since they'd landed on Vunn.

"When I was in the Corsairs I learned pretty quick that conventional thinking doesn't always get the job done. I had to learn to think on my feet and try less obvious solutions. Sometimes it's easier to buy someone a drink or play a quick hand of cards to get what you want."

"My old legion commander would argue with that. Playing games of chance to attain intelligence isn't a big part of either C-Sec or turian standard operation procedure but it seems to have worked out," Garrus snorted. "This time."

As soon as they'd put some distance between them and the club, Jacob ducked into an alleyway.

"Watch for any tails. I'm going to upload this to Miranda."

Garrus nodded and continued walking. He would continue on for a few blocks, find a good vantage point, and watch for anyone following them. To avoid drawing attention, the turian sniper had left his rifle in the shuttle but even with a pistol, he was a good enough shot to deter any pursuers long enough so Jacob could make an escape.

Jacob instinctively checked his surroundings before contacting the _Normandy_ on an encrypted comm channel. Garrus was watching his back but still… _Doesn't pay to be careless. _

"Arctic Fortress, Lantern, come in."

When he didn't receive an immediate reply, Jacob felt his pulse quicken in apprehension before he realized that this far out in the Terminus, FTL communication networks were limited.

"This is Arctic Fortress, reading you five."

_Sounds like Crewman Callahan. _

"Arctic Fortress, I have a package for Emma, over."

There was another pause before he heard Miranda's voice, crisp and cool.

"Lantern, Emma, send your package."

"Wilco."

Using code names and standard military communications protocols might be overkill, but they couldn't be sure who might be listening in. Jacob pulled out the OSD and placed it over the reader on his omnitool. As soon as the data had been copied and sent, he dropped the OSD to the ground and crushed it under his heel.

"Package received. Transmission successful. Emma out."

Jacob deactivated his omnitool and pulled the sleeve of his jacket back down to conceal it. He pressed his comm bead against his ear and contacted Garrus.

"Crusader, Lantern. Transmission complete. Let's get out of here."

_Hopefully we got something useful this time._

_

* * *

_

The look on Miranda's face was enough to tell him everything before she even opened her mouth. She'd always been able to mask her emotions and thoughts well, sealing them behind a perfectly neutral expression. Jacob had learned to catch glimpses through that mask, but lately that hadn't been necessary – she was broadcasting everything. Something had managed to so completely strip her of her defences that she didn't even seem like the same person sometimes. The flash of jealousy that flared in him told him exactly what – or _who – _that something was. The thought surprised him. _I thought I'd completely gotten over her. Guess not. _

"I cross-referenced the ship transponder codes you sent with satellite surveillance and other intelligence. No hits on anything."

Jacob frowned. The OSD he had won from the information broker on Vunn had contained the unique transponder codes for every ship that had passed through the system – and the three nearest it – over the last week. _Even if the bad guys are travelling without a squawking code, that should have narrowed things down enough for us to catch them. _

"So we've got nothing?" Garrus asked slowly, as if he was trying to convince himself. Miranda sighed and nodded.

"That means we're back at the beginning," Jacob snarled with more frustration than he'd intended. "Three days of searching and we're back at square one."

"We must have missed something."

Garrus interfaced his omnitool with the _Normandy_'s data storage systems and began to review the intelligence they'd gathered.

"Or they slipped our net. We might have missed something but EDI wouldn't," Miranda pointed out. _Way to stay optimistic, Miranda. _For the first time since he'd met her, she looked tired. He'd seen her work twenty hour days, sometimes even go days without sleep, without allowing so much as a hair to fall out of place. Now he could make out faint rings around her eyes.

"_May I suggest we widen the search parameters?" _

Jacob flinched at the sound of EDI's voice. He still wasn't used to the idea of having an AI on the ship watching his every action and listening to his every word. Every time he thought he'd gotten used to EDI and forgotten about 'her', she would pop out again when he wasn't expecting her. _Like now. _

"The shuttles can't move that fast. It could take weeks to check out every system if we widened the net. The _Normandy_ could do it, but then they might slip past us." Jacob closed his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose. He could feel a headache settling in behind his eyes. _Miranda might be able to go days without sleep but I can't._ He'd been relying on adrenaline and chemical stimulants from the infirmary to keep him going and it was catching up to him.

"If it's going to take weeks, we should probably start now," Garrus said, finally turning his attention from his omnitool as he seemed to realize double-checking the work of a multi-billion credit, fully sapient VI was unlikely to yield results.

"We might not have weeks. Shepard's captors might have called for reinforcements. For a prize like a treasonous Spectre, the Council might be willing to dispatch a flotilla into the Terminus for a pickup," Miranda said tiredly. Jacob didn't know why, but Miranda's defeated tone suddenly irritated him. Maybe he wasn't used to it. Or maybe he was irritated because it reminded him how fruitless their efforts had been and how exhausted he was. _Or maybe I'm still pissed off that she wouldn't be expending so much emotional energy if it was me that went missing. _

"So we should just give up? Hope we can break Shepard out once he shows up back in Council space? Maybe hire him a good lawyer and hope he gets Shepard a lighter sentence for past services and his clean record?" he asked sarcastically. For a moment the old Miranda he recognized returned in the form of the daggers of ice stabbing into him from her arctic-blue eyes.

"We'll find him. But we can't just go off blindly groping in the dark. We need a lead we can follow."

"_The Braxis cluster is not a primary area of interest for Cerberus. However, the Illusive Man may have intelligence assets in surrounding clusters we may be able to call upon for assistance. It is also possible that Cerberus has deep cover informants in some of the systems in this cluster. I can run a search in Cerberus databases for resources that can assist us,"_ EDI offered. Garrus nodded in agreement.

"Your Illusive Man is supposed to have eyes everywhere. Maybe one of them saw something that we could use."

"Communications between Cerberus and its informants are limited and generally only travel one way, to reduce the risk of compromising our agents if their informants are captured. If the Illusive Man had anything useful, he would have given it to us by now." Miranda paced the room like a caged animal, her brows knitted in a frown. "Thanks to my… lapse in judgment on Minthras, Shepard's captors also know who we are. They may be monitoring communications between us and Cerberus. We could attempt…"

Miranda's voice seemed to fade out as Jacob found his mind wandering. He was exhausted and hungry and right now the task facing them seemed so hopeless that he just felt like crawling back into his bunk in the armoury and pretending the problem would solve itself. Trying to find Shepard in the multitude of inhabited planets, moons, meteors, and space stations in the Braxis cluster was like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. _Except in this case the needle is one person and the haystack is a galactic star cluster spanning several hundred light years. _Their search reminded him of the years Liara T'Soni had spent searching for the Shadow Broker except in this case, they only had a few weeks instead of two years to spend looking. _I wonder if this is what Liara felt like when… _

"Liara. Liara's the Shadow Broker now," he blurted out.

Garrus and Miranda looked at him as if he'd gone insane. He imagined even EDI had stopped what she was doing and was questioning his sanity.

"Liara's likely moved her ship now that Cerberus knows about Hagalaz and we lack the means to contact her. Even if we did know where she disappeared to, we can't leave this cluster to find her," Miranda explained slowly, as if she were speaking to a child.

Jacob bristled and was about to snap back at her but for some inexplicable reason he found his mind wandering back to the Shadow Broker's massive ship and what he'd seen the one time they'd made a brief rendezvous with it so Shepard could drop off some supplies. He'd stumbled upon a console containing holovid recordings the Shadow Broker had collected over the years. Curious, he'd run a search of his own name. The results had been… unexpected. A projector had suddenly started displaying hours of recordings of him in the _Normandy_'s armoury, showing him doing everything from working out, to maintaining weapons, to reading comics, to… sleeping. He recalled being particularly disturbed by that last part, especially since he hadn't realized how much his face contorted while he slept.

Liara had barely even batted an eyelash when he'd shot her a look. _"Oh… Operative Taylor. I had been meaning to get the info drone to delete those but I've just been so busy lately trying to get everything up and running again. You should consider yourself fortunate though. The yahg had at least ten times the footage on Shepard…"_

"I think I know a way we might be able to contact her." _Let's hope Liara's still been too busy to remove those bugs. _


	4. Chapter 3

Engineer Donnelly looked down at them, his omnitool casting an orange glow over his face.

"I'm picking up an anomaly in the electromagnetic field strength of the wiring up here. There's something up here that shouldn't be." His head disappeared back into the open panel over the armoury. "At least not according to the blueprints. It's weak though – I'd never have picked it up if you hadn't told me where to take a gander."

Miranda looked over at Jacob.

"You knew you had surveillance bugs in the armoury yet it never occurred to you to try to remove them?"

"I'm not a tech or an engineer. Randomly smashing open panels and cutting wires didn't seem like a good idea."

Donnelly's voice echoed from above.

"Definitely not, _Lef_tenant Taylor," he snorted. "These wires provide power to some of the primary control systems. I would recommend against fiddling around up here until we reach a drydock with dedicated repair facilities."

Putting her hands on her hips, Miranda turned her attention back to Jacob.

"Well why didn't you tell someone so we could get this dealt with earlier?"

"I was a little distracted by more important concerns," Jacob said with a shrug.

"Such as?" He could feel Miranda's gaze on him. _I'm guessing it's the #3 sceptical eyebrow. _Miranda's flawless complexion was also beautifully expressive and she was a master of the unspoken language of woman's facial expressions. He wondered if she was aware of it as he stole a glance. _Yeah, I knew it. #3 sceptical eyebrow. _

"Like our mission to save the galaxy. Besides, Liara promised to disable them," he said in annoyance at her interrogation.

"And you trusted her?"

"Shepard did."

"Uh-huh."

"At least I noticed I was being watched. There're at least three cameras in your quarters."

Jacob smirked as Miranda paled. She glared as she noticed the amusement on his face.

"So what was your plan for contacting Liara? If she's got surveillance devices installed all over the ship, she would undoubtedly be aware of our having lost Shepard by now."

"She wouldn't if she wasn't monitoring them constantly," Garrus said. _How does he move like that? _Jacob tried to remember the number of times Garrus had managed to sneak up on him unintentionally but lost count. The turian could be like a ghost at times, a trait he shared with Shepard. _Maybe that's why they seem to get along so well. _

"Which is why we smash up as many of them as we can until she notices. Even if she forgot about them, I'm sure destroying them would draw attention. Maybe she'd try to contact us," Jacob said.

"Don't any'o you even think about hacking at the bulkheads in the armoury," Donnelly warned. "Or on this deck. Or in engineering. Or the crew deck for that matter," he hastily added. "This old girl is barely holding herself together right now and I can't promise my repairs won't give out if you lot start chopping at her like a bunch'o drunken hooligans after a footie match."

"I guess we need another plan then," Miranda said, turning to leave. EDI's disembodied blue spherical 'body' popped up, stopping her.

"_There is one area of the ship that will likely be under surveillance and has no critical systems surrounding it. Superficial damage to the captain's quarters is unlikely to compromise the Normandy's capabilities to any noticeable degree." _

"You think we should trash Shepard's cabin?" Jacob asked incredulously.

"We don't have a choice. We need to contact Liara and if destroying his quarters is the only way it can be done, Shepard will understand."

_She has a point. _He doubted Shepard would get too angry knowing they'd only done it to get him back. _Not to mention we could always blame it on his girlfriend. _Jacob tore an emergency fire axe off the wall and tossed it to Miranda but as he reached to grab another, Garrus spoke up.

"Isn't this a little drastic? Tearing up our ship so it will _maybe_ get Liara's attention? How did Shepard contact Liara? Maybe she gave him some sort of communication device, something that allowed him to circumvent the ship's communications system to prevent Cerberus from listening in."

Jacob saw Miranda look at him with an expression that told him they were thinking the same thing. _Why didn't we think of that?_

"Either way, we'll have to go into Shepard's cabin," Miranda said. "Fortunately, he gave me access." She fixed them with a glare.

"If I hear any snide remarks or rumours filtering around the ship, you three will be wishing _you _were taken in Shepard's stead."

* * *

"So… where do you think this 'device' is?"

Miranda arched an eyebrow.

"Why are you asking me?"

"You're the only one who's been up here before," Jacob stated neutrally. His eyes passed over Shepard's bed and he tried not to think of what Miranda and Shepard did in this room.

"Yes, but I never rummaged through his things."

Garrus picked up Shepard's alarm clock and turned it over in his talons. Seeming to find nothing, he set it back down. Jacob shook his head. _This is going to take forever. _He picked up a paper weight shaped like an eagle. It looked like nothing but…

"Liara? If you can read this…"

Garrus looked at him like he had suddenly sprouted horns. Miranda sighed.

"Jacob, it's a paperweight. It's made of solid bronze. Not even the Shadow Broker could hide a camera in it without it being obvious."

Sheepishly, he set it back down on the desk. As he did, he heard a soft whirring sound and jumped back out of shock as a door slid open behind him.

"What the hel…"

"_That is the captain's private washroom, Operative Taylor. I have scanned it and can verify it does not pose a threat to your safety." _Jacob glared at the console EDI's voice had emanated from. _"That was a joke." _

"AI with a sense of humour, how does Joker stand it?" he muttered as he stepped inside. The washroom was larger than he'd expected, large enough to fit at least two sleeping pods side by side. _One of the benefits of commanding a ship built by a bunch of civvies – comfort over functionality. _He opened the medicine cabinet and picked up a barely used electric razor with a smattering of dark brown stubble covering it. _I hope that's from his face._ He turned it over in his hands, running it briefly over his omnitool to check for irregularities before quickly setting it back down. _Yep, we're going to be here forever._

_

* * *

_

It was almost two hours later when they all seemed to concede defeat and stopped searching. Shepard's cabin hadn't had a lot of things in it, but Miranda had insisted on double-checking every item and carefully setting aside and storing those items they had eliminated.

"Time for plan B?"

Miranda nodded. "Best we'd get started. This might take a while."

Jacob caught the heavy fire axe she tossed him.

"Well… where do we start?"

"According to Engineer Donnelly, the devices used by the Shadow Broker emit no special signals of their own. Only the fluctuations they caused in the power systems made them detectable on the other decks. There aren't any major systems in the bulkheads here, so we'll start at the ceiling and work our way to the floor," Miranda stated matter-of-factly as she picked up another fire axe from the floor and slammed it through a bulkhead. He knew she was far stronger than she appeared, thanks to her genetic engineered body, but the image of Miranda, with the body of a supermodel and the face of a holovid star, smashing her way through the metal bulkhead with a heavy fire axe like it was tissue paper was ridiculous. Jacob didn't know whether it was Miranda with the fire axe, lack of sleep, or both but he suddenly found himself laughing out loud.

"Are you two just going to stand there or are you going to help me?" Miranda fumed. She noticed his snickering. "What?" She noticed her reflection in the glass of the display case over Shepard's desk and Jacob thought he saw the hint of a smile briefly replace her frown. _That's probably the first smile I've seen since Shepard went missing. _Shepard might have been the only one able to completely break through her shell, but it still felt good to know he could crack it a little on occasion.

"Shepard's probably going to kill us when we rescue him and he finds out about this," Garrus muttered under his breath. Jacob hefted the axe and swung it into a bulkhead, accidentally sweeping an expensive-looking model of the _Normandy _SR-1 onto the ground with his backswing, shattering it into a million pieces. _Scratch that. He's definitely going to kill us. _

It only took about a half hour of trashing Shepard's cabin before Crewman Callahan informed Miranda that the _Normandy_ was being hailed.

"Do you know where it's coming from, Callahan?"

"No, ma'am. It's coming from an emergency broadcast buoy. I tried tracking the signal, but it's being bounced through at least four relays. The original location of the initial transmission could be anywhere."

"Transfer the hail to the comm room, crewman. I will take it in there." Miranda set her fire axe down. "EDI, activate signals encryption protocols on all incoming and outgoing communications traffic."

"_Already done, Operative Lawson." _

_It's time to call in a favour. _"Jacob, Garrus, come with me."

Miranda waited for Jacob and Garrus to leave Shepard's room before following them out herself. The cabin had been completely obliterated. It looked like a bomb had gone off. Huge rents had been torn in the walls and debris covered everything. An overenthusiastic swing by Garrus had accidentally shattered the wall-mounted aquarium, spilling water and now-dead fish all over the deck, ruining everything that hadn't already been destroyed by their axes. It was a good thing she had thought to save the few personal mementos Shepard had in his room, because other than those items she saved, everything else was lying in pieces. A part of her was disappointed she hadn't found anything hidden which could lend further insights into the enigmatic ex-Spectre she had come to care for, but her more logical side admonished her for attempting to 'cheat' in their relationship. She forced herself to heed Jacob's advice. _He'll tell me what he feels the need to reveal to me if… when we find him. _

* * *

The ride in the lift and the short walk to the comm room was silent. This was their best – and possibly last – shot at picking up Shepard's trail. Miranda deliberately took a moment to calm her nerves before opening the channel, noting in annoyance that she couldn't recall the last time she'd felt nervous during the course of doing her job.

"_Receiving incoming transmission,"_ EDI's voice intoned and then Liara T'Soni's image suddenly flashed across the holoscreen.

"Oh thank the Goddess, Operative Lawson!"

"Hello again, Liara," Miranda greeted in a measured, guarded tone. The asari looked haggard and exhausted, her skin a much paler shade of blue than Miranda remembered her having back on Illium. _You need to look after yourself if you want to survive in your new line of work, Liara. _It was obvious she'd been subsisting on far too little sleep and she appeared to be literally wasting away. Liara's appearance suddenly made Miranda wonder how she looked. _It's not like you've been heeding that advice either. _

"Forgive me, it's very good to see you unharmed," Liara straightened her jacket. _Another unconscious tell. Smart girl, but still lacks experience. _Miranda filed away that observation instinctively. "And Operative Taylor and Garrus as well," the asari quickly added in when she noticed Jacob and Garrus behind Miranda. Garrus awkwardly nodded in acknowledgement, as if unsure whether he should have waved or said something instead but finally settled on the gesture that would require drawing the least attention on his part.

"I thought the _Normandy_ might be under attack and…" She flushed as it dawned on her that Miranda had found her surveillance devices. "I'm very sorry. I promised Operative Taylor I would disable the devices the Shadow Broker had installed on the _Normandy_ but things have been hectic lately and…"

Miranda put up her hand to stop her.

"It's alright, Liara. I can only imagine what it's like. I'd ask you how things are going on your end, but I'm afraid this isn't a social call, as you've probably already deduced."

Liara frowned.

"Where is Shepard?"

"He's… gone. Someone's taken him." The words still resonated oddly, coming out of her mouth. _Hero-in-distress just doesn't sound quite right. _Even after several days of searching for him, it was difficult to believe Shepard was the one in need of rescue.

Liara's eyes narrowed, taking on a coldness that seemed completely unsuited for her youthful-looking face.

"What do you mean 'someone's taken him'? Shepard isn't just some child someone can just snatch off a street somewhere. How could you just lose him?" she asked accusingly. Miranda tried to ignore Liara's tone but found herself eyeing the asari warily. _Is this the same woman who I found on Omega two years ago, wandering wide-eyed in Afterlife, blindly fumbling around for answers about Shepard? _

"So far we've been unsuccessful in narrowing down his whereabouts and picking up the trail of his captors but we suspect it was the Council." Miranda uploaded the pathetically sparse intelligence they'd gathered. Liara's eyes moved from Miranda's face to a point above the screen and Miranda realized she was reading. Her eyes darted back and forth rapidly for a few moments before settling back on Miranda. _Did she really read everything just now? Either Liara can read and absorb information like a VI or we had even less relevant intelligence then I thought. _

Liara broke eye contact and her expression softened.

"I should have known something like this would happen and gone with my instincts." The shadow of something approximating… _guilt?_ spread over her face. This time it was Miranda's turn to get angry.

"Your instincts? What are you talking about?" The asari appeared to be trying to avoid looking at her. "What do you know?"

"I had reports that the Council might be discussing the possibility of recalling Shepard to debrief them on your mission and account for Tela Vasir's death, but I didn't think it worthwhile to forward to the _Normandy _because they were still unsubstantiated. Will you give me a moment?"

For a moment there was awkward silence before Miranda realized Liara was actually waiting for a response and she hurriedly nodded. The asari smiled tiredly and disappeared for a moment. Miranda could hear her discussing something with someone in the background. _Probably Feron._

Liara appeared on the screen again a few moments later.

"My sources report that a Spectre was dispatched from the Citadel a few weeks ago, along with a contingent of officers from the C-Sec Special Response Division. They arrived on Jhorlath, a turian outpost, a few days later where they transferred vessels."

Miranda felt a sinking sensation in her stomach as she voiced a question.

"What kind of vessel did they transfer to?"

Liara glanced off the screen again, appearing to read something off another.

"An unmarked turian Muursa-class fast patrol vessel, converted into a blockade runner. It had a fake registration and a variable transponder code, like those often assigned to turian special forces vessels." Liara's face became even paler than it'd been before. "My network lost track of it when it left Jhorlath but picked it up again in the Minthras system. After stopping for a day, it broke orbit from Minthras IV and disappeared through the Telion-3 relay… the relay my surveillance devices tell me the _Normandy _is orbiting right now."

Miranda suddenly she felt physically sick. _They've slipped the net. They're gone… and with Shepard._

_

* * *

_

Jacob saw Miranda wobble a little on her feet and grabbed her arm.

"Garrus, get Miranda down to the infirmary." The turian hesitated for a moment but then moved towards Miranda.

"I'm fine. It must have been something I ate," she protested, pushing away Garrus' arm.

"Something you ate? Do you even remember the last time you ate? Or slept?" Jacob asked, crossing his arms.

"It's nothing. I'll be fine," Miranda scowled but she almost fell over and had to grab the briefing table for support.

"You can't help Shepard if you collapse from exhaustion." _Don't fight me. You know I'm right. _She stared at him defiantly for a few moments before giving in and letting Garrus put an arm around her waist to help her back towards the lift.

"Will she be alright?"

Jacob looked back up at the holoscreen. To his surprise Liara looked genuinely concerned. _Why are you surprised? Maybe it's a sign you've been working with cloak-and-dagger types for too long. Or maybe Cerberus is starting to rub off on you… _That last thought scared him more than he wanted to admit but he ignored it for the moment.

"Yeah, she can be stubborn sometimes but she's tough. She'll be fine."

Liara smiled and somehow Jacob felt his spirits lifted. Everything about Liara just felt so honest, so… real. _How'd she survive as an information broker for two years? _

"That turian blockade runner – were your agents able to track it?"

The smile disappeared from Liara's face.

"Yes, but there's a problem." Her expression darkened. "It briefly resurfaced in the Sahrabarik system in the Omega Nebula, but disappeared shortly after. My predecessor didn't have much success infiltrating Sahrabarik and I'm afraid I haven't fared much better. It's Aria T'Loak's territory. My network likely won't be able to pick up the trail again until they resurface in Council space."

"Which will be too late." Jacob pounded his fist on the table in frustration. _We should have gone to Liara sooner. _

"There is something we could try." Liara was chewing on her bottom lip thoughtfully and Jacob could almost see the wheels turning in her head. "Aria's surveillance network in her territory is almost as good as mine is in the rest of the galaxy – maybe even better in some places. Aria might be able to track Shepard's captors for us, maybe even recover Shepard from them."

"Why would she do that?" Jacob asked sceptically. "We're not exactly friendly with her."

Liara smiled knowingly.

"We can pay her."

"With what?" Jacob snorted. "Aria's the most powerful crimelord in the sector – maybe even in the entire Terminus. She doesn't want anything from us. We probably don't even have the funds to get an audience and it's not like she's going to believe the Shadow Broker is just going to come out of hiding to pony up the credits."

"That's where you're wrong, Operative Taylor." Liara's grin grew wider. _She's enjoying this part. _"Information is the most valuable commodity in the universe for someone like Aria. Fortunately for both of us, and Shepard, I'm the Shadow Broker. Information is my specialty."

* * *

"I'm connecting us to Aria T'Loak right now. I'll be using a voice scrambler and hiding my identity from her, but not from you. She can't find out who I really am. She may try to probe, asking seemingly innocuous questions to pry information from you. You must be aware of this and…"

Jacob put up his hands and tried to smile reassuringly with a confidence he wasn't sure he felt right now. _Centuries old asari crimeboss who's been manipulating people since before my great-great-grandparents were born? What's there to worry about? _

"This isn't my first time in a meeting like this, Liara. I'm not a rookie."

Liara blushed slightly as it seemed to occur to her that Jacob had been doing what he did longer than she had.

"Right then. I've established a connection. Provided Aria truly believes I'm the Shadow Broker, she should come online shortly."

As Liara promised, the infamous Aria T'Loak's image materialized on a holodisplay beside Liara's a few moments later. Even knowing he was safely out of Aria's grasp on the _Normandy_, with millions of miles of empty space separating them, caused a tingle of fear to slither along his spine. He felt the uncomfortable sensation of the asari crimeboss measuring him with her eyes, probing for chinks in his armour. He tried to fall back on the mental techniques Miranda had taught him, back when he'd been a fresh Cerberus recruit, a soldier still just pretending to be a spy. _Think of something else. Focus on something neutral like… this morning's workout routine. Two hours cardiovascular training, three hundred pushups, one arm curls in four sets of twenty-five… _His eyes were drifting away from Aria's face and he forced himself to re-establish eye contact. _Not working… if Bruce Wayne Batman took on Tony Stark Ironman without their suits, who would win? Bruce Wayne has extensive hand-to-hand combat training but Tony Stark has got to be pretty ripped to stomp around in that suit, doesn't he? But the suit is powered…_

"It's not often I get personal calls from the Shadow Broker. To what do I owe this pleasure?"

Aria's voice was just as Jacob remembered it – smooth and seductive with a barely perceptible hint of menace. He wondered how Liara was feeling. _At least she has that voice scrambler and her face hidden. _

"We're looking for a ship that passed into your territory," Jacob said guardedly, conscious not to give up too much, too soon. Aria looked at him disdainfully.

"I remember you. You're Shepard's friend. You'll have to forgive me for not remembering your name. You're a little bland, but then I suppose Shepard tends to overshadow most people and I can't expect all of Shepard's companions to possess such... colourful personalities."

Jacob gritted his teeth but forced himself to avoid responding.

"I find it strange that the _Shadow Broker_ is coming to _me_ for information."

"My network spans the galaxy, but even I can't have eyes in all places, at all times." Liara's scrambled voice stated.

"Yes, I imagine that would be true, particularly in areas where I've gouged out those eyes." Aria's painted lips seemed permanently twisted into a sinister sneer but strangely, it took nothing away from their sensual appeal. _I wonder if she eats her mates after killing them. _"I may have information but I won't give it out freely. What can you give me in return?"

The answer was addressed to Jacob but Liara answered it.

"I don't need to tell you that you have rivals and enemies, all of whom are constantly plotting against you, planning your demise. I know things that I think will interest you."

"I have my own spies to warn me of potential threats," Aria said dismissively.

"You may have informants, but I have more."

"How do I know your information will be any good?"

"I'm the Shadow Broker," Liara responded simply. Jacob had to admit he was impressed. Liara seemed to be picking up on the art of negotiating far more quickly than he ever had. _Then again, she was an information broker for two years. It's not like this is her first day. _Liara's age and natural innocence made it easy to forget that this wasn't her first time in situations like this either.

The answer seemed to satisfy Aria and she nodded at Liara to give her more details.

"About two days ago, a modified _Mursaa_-class turian patrol vessel jumped from the Braxis cluster and we suspect it slipped into your territory. It was using a variable transponder beacon so it's likely changed its identification codes, but my network was able to pick up its jump signature before it escaped."

"Hmm, my informants did report a vessel of this type arrive in-system in your timeframe. At first we thought it might have been turian military, so my men have been tracking it."

"Can you stop it?" Jacob blurted out. Aria laughed but there was no humour in her tone.

"Why would I do that? I have enough enemies. I don't need to make more. I can forward the vessel's last known location to you but that's all I will provide. If you're going to follow them, I suggest you ensure you're well-prepared to deal with… resistance."

"What does that mean?"

Aria smiled mischievously and something about cats and canaries slipped through Jacob's mind.

"I'm sure your 'friend', the Shadow Broker can fill you in on that. But I'm curious… what's Cerberus' interest in this?"

"They've stolen something from us and we want it back," Jacob said, forcing his voice to remain steady and even.

"Something? Or someone?"

_Someone? How much does she know? _Jacob couldn't tell by the glint in Aria's eyes.

"I… I can't tell you that."

Aria shrugged and let out a mock sigh.

"I suppose that's understandable. What I don't understand is why the Shadow Broker would come out of hiding to work with Cerberus. It doesn't exactly seem like your usual modus operandi, Broker."

"My reasons are my own, Aria."

_Why didn't I just answer with something like that? _Liara was handling Aria far better than he was.

"True. From our past dealings, I just never expected that you would take such a personal interest in conducting negotiations but I guess you wouldn't be the Shadow Broker if you weren't enigmatic."

The asari crimeboss shifted her gaze to Jacob for a moment, dragging a single slender fingertip along her lips, letting it rest on her chin for a moment before letting it fall.

"If there's nothing else you two require, I'm afraid I have other business to attend to. Until next time, Broker."

Aria gave Jacob one last smile before abruptly cutting the connection. Jacob felt uneasy as the image of the asari's smile stayed with him and he realized he didn't hate it.

"That went better than I thought it would."

Liara didn't answer him for a moment. There was a troubled expression on her face as she reviewed the information Aria had sent them.

"This can't be right, yet I have local sources that confirm it."

"What can't be right?" Jacob asked cautiously.

"Aria's information allowed my network to confirm our ship is hiding out on a large moon orbiting a gas giant in the Meliccar Abyss. The area was first settled by turians, several thousand years ago, in the Turian Hierarchy's first phase of expansion."

"It's a turian ship, probably crewed by turians. They're probably trying to lose any pursuers."

Liara still didn't look at him as she continued to read.

"If you're right, this Spectre we're chasing must be either completely fearless or insane. The turian colonies in the Meliccar Abyss rebelled against the Hierarchy in the Unification War. They managed to break away completely and to this day they remain deeply hostile towards the Hierachy and to the Citadel Council. If they managed to catch a Council Spectre…"

"But Shepard's no longer a Spectre if the Council sent another Spectre after him. What would they do if he fell into their hands?"

Finally turning to look at him, Liara frowned.

"They're not known for their hospitality towards outsiders. Most of the breakaway turian colonies tend to be insular and more than a little racist. They might hold him for ransom, but then again, they might just kill him on principle."

"You don't know? Aren't you the Shadow Broker?" Jacob asked incredulously. Liara sounded slightly annoyed as she answered him.

"Turians aren't any easier to generalize than humans. I can't tell you how an individual turian will act in a particular situation any more than you can predict what a random member of your crew will eat for breakfast tomorrow." Liara sighed. "You had better go after them before they move again. I can have my agents continue to provide you with updates on their location, but I can't guarantee they won't jump into an area I don't have reliable coverage in again."

Jacob nodded.

"So you can't give us any more help?"

Liara chuckled softly. Jacob noted that the contrast between her laugh and Aria's was like night and day.

"If Shepard hadn't put such a big dent in the Shadow Broker's guard force I might have been able to provide you with some additional firepower, but stealth will probably be your best option if you're heading into the Meliccar Abyss." She smiled tiredly. "A part of me wants to drop everything to join you, but I think I'll be of more use here, providing intelligence. I'm not sure bringing an asari with you will make you any more inconspicuous in a turian colony."

"Guess that's true," Jacob conceded. There was an awkward moment where neither of them said anything before Liara spoke up.

"May I ask a favour of you?"

Jacob arched an eyebrow questioningly. "Sure?"

"Tell Miranda to look after Shepard when you find him."

_That was unexpected. _"What do you mean?"

"You probably see Shepard in the same way as Cerberus did when they asked for my help to find his body – a fearless war hero able to overcome any odds and willing to do anything to stop the Reapers. Most of the time, he is that person." She looked uncertain. "But when we were travelling together, sometimes, when he thought I wasn't paying attention, I saw someone else. Tired, world-weary, maybe even a little lonely and broken. It's easy to forget sometimes, but he's mortal, just like everyone else…"

Her voice trailed off.

"Why are you telling me this?"

Liara looked at him wistfully.

"When I agreed to help Cerberus find Shepard's body, I knew they weren't trying to recover him just so they could give him a proper burial. When Miranda told me they were going to resurrect him, I was unsure at first but I eventually accepted it. I told myself that Cerberus was giving him a second chance. I never stopped to consider what that second chance would entail." She paused and Jacob thought he could see the hint of tears forming in her eyes. _Please don't cry, I'm not good with tears. _"Sometimes, I think it would have been best for him if we'd just let the dead lie where they fell."

He frowned.

"He's doing important work, Liara. He might be the only one who can stop the Reapers."

A single tear rolled down Liara's cheek but she managed to hold the rest back.

"I know. He would never let anyone else take up that responsibility." she said softly. "But he pays a price for that and I don't know that anybody can bear that burden forever. Not even Shepard. At least when the Collectors killed him the first time, he didn't have to bear that burden anymore..."

She wiped away the tear with her thumb.

"Just… please tell Miranda to look after him for me."

Jacob didn't know what to say so he just nodded. Liara straightened out her jacket.

"I guess this is where I tell you good luck and to be careful then, Operative Taylor. So… be careful and bring Shepard back."

"We'll track him down. Thanks for your help, Liara."

She smiled and finally cut the connection. Jacob stood silently in the darkened comm room for a moment before briefing Joker on their new intel and heading back towards the armoury. There would be much to prepare in the coming hours, but that would have to wait. For now he just needed a few hours of sleep.


	5. Chapter 4

"You know I never believed you were a traitor."

His eyelids felt heavy and it seemed to take all of his strength just to force his eyes open. Unlike the last few times he'd been awoken, there was no bright light being shined directly into his face. Still, the harsh reality that greeted his awakening made him wish he could slip back into unconsciousness, into dreams of deep blue eyes that sparkled like sapphires, flowing, silky brown hair that smelled faintly of vanilla and lilies, alabaster skin as flawless as porcelain and softer than the finest silk…

"I still don't."

He momentarily squeezed his eyelids shut again, wishing he could will away the headache that seemed to be gripping his brain in a vice. He was still hanging from restraints that forced his arms above his head and he imagined that if his muscles hadn't been so heavily augmented with synthetic fibres, his shoulders would be screaming in pain by now. There were days that he wished he still had his original, unenhanced body but today wasn't one of them. The loss of sensation the synthetic modifications imbued was a blessing right now.

"So this is all just a big mix-up then? If you let me go I think I could be convinced not to file a lawsuit for damages."

Someone softly chuckled.

"I'm afraid not."

_Water. I need water. _His lips were parched and cracked and his throat felt so dry that it hurt. As if someone had read his mind, a cup was tilted gently into his mouth and he drank greedily.

"We supplied nutrition intravenously but Larum didn't realize that humans have a wet palate and routinely need to ingest fluids orally," Ihla said apologetically. _I'm guessing this is when she plays 'good cop' to re-establish the trust between captor and captive. _When his thirst had been sated, Ihla lowered the cup and placed it on a table. With his body rehydrated, Shepard felt the headache slowly subsiding. He noticed his surroundings had changed again and his body, seasoned by a lifetime of trundling from one battlefield to another on military transports, told him he was no longer on a ship.

"I'm guessing it'd probably be too much to ask for something with more of an edge to it?"

Another chuckle. _Yep, we're definitely playing 'good cop, bad cop'. _Ihla took a step back and crossed her arms.

"I had a team check out your story. They couldn't verify everything, but enough of it checked out that it seems you were telling the truth, or at least enough of it to weave a very convincing lie."

Shepard nodded. He hadn't expected the turian to bother checking his story. If a prisoner had told him a story as fantastical as the one he'd told Ihla he wasn't sure he wouldn't just write it off as nonsense. _I'd probably just skip straight to the torture. _

"When I first woke up you said you didn't think I was a traitor. Why not?"

Ihla pulled up a chair and sat down. She had never done that in any of her previous interrogations. _That could be good or bad. _

"I became a Spectre about six months before you did. Unlike with you, the Council threw me a few soft cases to start me off slow. I had just finished my last case when the Council called me back to debrief them. By that happy coincidence, I ended up one of the few Spectres present at the Citadel when the geth attacked." The turian Spectre looked at him strangely. "I'd fought geth before and that dreadnought leading the geth fleet was obviously no geth."

Shepard snorted.

"It didn't seem so obvious to the Council."

"They're politicians, Shepard. They believe what they want to believe. They're almost as good at lying to themselves as they are at lying to the voters." Ihla shrugged. "Besides, most of them could barely tell a turian dreadnought from a salarian freighter. I wouldn't expect them to be able to identify a geth dreadnought even if they wanted to."

"So you're saying you believe in the Reapers?"

_This is too convenient. _Shepard watched the turian carefully for some kind of tell that could clue him in that she was playing him but couldn't spot anything obvious.

"I'm saying I believe that ship leading the geth was something very advanced and unlike anything we've encountered before. I'm saying I saw the reports of every relay in the galaxy linked to the Citadel temporarily shutting down due to a 'glitch', coincidentally at the same time that that unidentified ship was linking itself to the Citadel. I'm saying I also saw the sealed after action reports that said you almost singlehandedly fought off Saren Arterius and shut down the unidentified vessel's shields, allowing the Arcturus fleet to destroy it," Ihla said, carefully picking her words. "Only you've ever come out and called this unidentified vessel a 'Reaper'."

"And this was enough for you to conclude that I'm not crazy and I'm not a traitor?"

"Well, I'm still not sure about the crazy part but traitor? No." Ihla shook her head. "I might be a relatively inexperienced Spectre, but I've seen enough of the galaxy that I have trouble buying the official line about that… thing attacking the Citadel being the only one of its kind. I believe that these things are a grave threat to galactic stability and we should be investigating them, not suppressing information about them. I'm not the only one who believes this."

"What do you mean?" Shepard asked warily.

"There've been quite a few other Spectres who have been spending their downtime traveling to places you visited while chasing Saren. There are rumours that not all of them have been doing it of their own accord – they were ordered to retrace your steps."

"So if you don't think I'm a traitor and you think I'm right about the Reape- the unidentified ships," Shepard corrected himself, "Why are you still bringing me in?"

"I have my orders. Not all of us can just decide we're sick of taking orders from the Council and go rogue. We don't all have the luxury of logistical support from groups like Cerberus and close allies who would follow us to hell and back like you do, Shepard." Ihla sighed. "And there's still the matter of Tela Vasir you have to answer for."

"You know I won't tell you anything. After that stunt with the holorecording, you've got nothing else to coerce me with. I don't have any other friends or family you can threaten me with," Shepard stated bluntly.

"And you're immune to torture. That makes you like the rest of us then." Ihla laughed but there was a look of regret in her eyes that he recognized from having seen it so many times reflected in the mirror. "Very well. I won't press you on it. The Council can try prying the secrets out of that thick head of yours then."

Ihla got up to leave.

"We should be in Council space by tomorrow. I'm not going to knock you out again, but I suggest you get some rest."

"What happens then?" Shepard asked. Ihla turned to look back at him.

"The Council will probably try to make an example of you. After Saren, people are suspicious of Spectres and the Council has been taking some heat. They'll probably try to stick you with charges of treason and murder and press for either the death penalty or life imprisonment."

Shepard laughed sardonically.

"I hope they at least give me a final cigarette and a blindfold before I go."

Ihla shook her head.

"I doubt they'll be able to make the charges stick. You've got too many allies. They'll probably have to settle for lesser offenses and be content with dishonourable discharge and a few years of incarceration." Ihla grinned. "Think of it as a forced vacation. I read your file Shepard. You haven't taken a day of leave in the last six years."

"So you're a glass half full type." The turian Spectre looked at him quizzically. "Human expression," he explained. Ihla made what looked like an 'Ah!' expression. She moved towards the door but then stopped as if she'd suddenly thought of something she'd forgotten.

"Shepard, if this is the last time we speak, I just wanted to say it's been an honour to finally meet you. When I told you I wished we met under other circumstances, I meant it."

Shepard wasn't sure why, but somehow he knew Ihla was being genuine. _It's too bad things had to turn out like this. Garrus would have liked her. _

"You could always knock me out, release me, put on a disguise and try again."

His comment elicited a final grin from the turian Spectre.

"Keep that sense of humour, Shepard. I read somewhere that juries can't bring themselves to convict a funny prisoner."

Ihla turned off the lights and closed the door, leaving him in total darkness again.

* * *

Jacob grimaced as he heard the bottom of the shuttle being pelted by debris kicked up by its engines. A sub-zero wind was also raging outside, whistling eerily through the open cabin door. To avoid detection by either Shepard's captors or the renegade turians that had settled on Pellas, the moon Liara's people had tracked their quarry to, the shuttle's VI had been programmed to skim at minimum altitude over the surface to hide its thermal emissions and LADAR signature. Dipping to the bottom of every valley and barely clearing each peak, the VI was clearly following its programming to the letter.

"It's times like this I wish we had an organic pilot!" he shouted over the din. They'd all turned off their personal comms in case somebody on the ground got lucky and picked up their signal. Garrus didn't even look up from cleaning his sniper rifle.

"Organic pilots lack the reflexes to fly this low."

"But at least an organic pilot would have to think about not flying _himself_ into a mountain. Adrenaline can make up some of the difference for an organic but you can't give a VI a sense of self-preservation!"

He could feel the shuttle vibrating violently as it flew through its own turbulence. In the back of his mouth, he could feel his fillings being shaken loose. With her perfect balance and well-toned legs, Miranda didn't even seem to feel the turbulence as she stood up and leaned in towards them so her voice could be heard.

"Liara's contact is supposed to meet us at a location nearby, just outside the main settlement. We should be coming up on it!"

Despite almost having passed out the day before, Miranda looked none the worse for wear. Physically she was fine, but Jacob wasn't worried about that part. _I just hope she's got her head right and her emotions in check. We screw up here and they're enough crazy rebel turians down there to kill each of us a few times over. _

The cabin's lighting turned red, warning them the first landing zone was coming up. When the shuttle came up on it, it climbed slightly, the nose pulling up as it touched down just long enough for Miranda and him to jump out. Almost before their feet had even hit the ground, the shuttle climbed back up, circling a short distance away so Garrus could provide them with covering fire if something went wrong. Jacob tried to convince himself they were just being cautious. _There shouldn't be any need for that. Liara's people should be trustworthy, right? _One look at the three turians fighting through the snow towards them and he wasn't so sure.

"The Shadow Broker never said anything about… humans," the turian standing in the middle snarled, almost spitting out the word 'humans'.

"The Shadow Broker sends whoever he trusts can get the job done. We're here to recover some goods stolen from him, not impress you. Let's just get our business over with so we can both be on our way," Miranda answered calmly, completely unfazed by the trio standing a few metres in front of them. _It's good to have her back. _Negotiation had never been his strong point. Memories of the bar on Braxis flashed through his mind. _Although _m_aybe it's not hers either with the state of mind she's in right now..._

He could barely hear what Miranda and the turian were saying over the howling of the wind. After a few tense moments, they seemed to come to an agreement and the turians scurried back towards the shelter of a nearby tracked rover. Miranda sent off a short transmission for the shuttle to return and soon they were doing the same.

"Liara's man puts Shepard and his captors at an abandoned mine about one hundred and fifty kilometres from here. It's a fairly large complex, with an attached landing pad but there aren't many buildings so it shouldn't take us too long to search," Miranda shouted, ducking back into the shuttle. She tapped her omnitool and Jacob heard his and Garrus' beep, indicating they'd received an upload of the target area.

"The area's remote. That could be good or bad. It'll prevent anybody else from hearing anything and coming to investigate, but it doesn't give us any cover for our approach," Garrus noted grimly as he reviewed the holographic map.

"Did Liara's informant say anything about the locals?" Jacob asked. Miranda nodded. From her expression, he doubted he was going to like her answer.

"Well-armed militia forces, probably stronger than would normally be expected in a typical turian colony of this size due to the threat of raiders and pirates, as well as this colony's renegade status. If alerted, they have a rapid reaction force that can respond to any intrusions out to about five hundred kilometers from the main colony in about thirty minutes." Miranda turned to the shuttle's encrypted communications suite and quickly sent off a message. "I've just informed Joker of the situation on the ground. If he sees anything suspicious, he can provide additional air support from orbit."

The remainder of the flight to the mine was spent mostly in silence. All three of them were experienced and well-trained and didn't need to fill the silence with pointless chatter. Their attack plan had been concocted on the fly, but they'd just have to rely on luck and the element of surprise.

"Thirty seconds!" Miranda shouted. Garrus set up the two door guns for autofire. Once it dropped them off, the shuttle would take off again, its VI bringing it back up to a safe altitude. This increased the risk it could be detected, but it was either that or risk it being taken down by a lucky shot. It was equipped with signals jamming equipment and stealth modifications which would hopefully let it remain undetected. The shuttle approached the buildings clustered around the huge landing pad from behind, using the mountain the mine was nestled into to hide it from observers until it could insert its payload. Jacob felt his stomach do a somersault as the shuttle climbed straight up over the mountain, then dove almost vertically towards the tallest building, levelling out a few metres from its room.

Warily, Jacob jumped out of the shuttle and swept his shotgun over the roof but it seemed they had managed to stay undetected. The shuttle lifted off again and disappeared over the mountain, leaving them alone on the rooftop. _No backup and facing an unknown number of bad guys in an unfamiliar environment with no concrete plan. _He sighed. _Just another day at the office. _

"Turn on your comms. Hopefully the encryption will keep our communications from being intercepted long enough for us to snatch Shepard and extract to the _Normandy_," Miranda said, switching on the comm bead in her ear. "This rooftop provides a good vantage point. Garrus, you stay up here and watch for any local reinforcements."

The turian nodded and snapped his helmet shut. Lying down on the roof, his hastily repainted armour made him almost visible on the snow-covered rooftop.

"Jacob, you take the west side of the building, I'll take the east. Contact me when you reach the ground floor and we'll regroup and move onto the next building. If you encounter any hostile personnel, try to dispatch them silently. We can't afford to be bogged down by resistance."

"Gotcha," Jacob acknowledged. Miranda was settling easily into her role again as executive officer of the _Normandy_. Miranda might not be the most charismatic commander, but she was experienced, usually coolheaded, and always gave the impression that she knew exactly what she was doing. _Even when she really doesn't. _Jacob hoped that wouldn't be the case here.

Miranda checked her submachine gun one last time and waved for Jacob to follow her to an access hatch leading into the building below.

"Right, keep in contact and notify the rest of the team if you see anything out of place. I want sitreps every five minutes. Move out!"

* * *

Ihla sipped her coffee slowly as she stared out a viewport. It was the cold season on Pellas and all around her she could see nothing but white. _Looks like a storm's gathering. _She frowned. She could barely make out their ship parked on the main landing pad. Despite the size of the blockade runner, the landing pad still dwarfed it, having been built to accommodate oversized ore haulers. Their blockade runner could easily handle a storm, but low visibility would force their inexperienced pilot to turn on their sensors to see the terrain, increasing the chance the locals would realize they were here.

She considered herself to be a pragmatic and creative agent, particularly for a turian, but this mission had gone seriously off course. First Councillor Naeus had given her half the complement of men she'd requested, claiming that giving her anymore would arouse the suspicions of the human Councillor. Instead of the veterans she'd asked for, she'd been given mostly raw replacements, brash, impulsive, and overly aggressive. Of those men, Shepard had killed twelve of them – _over a third of my force!_ – in the span of less than a minute. This had included both their experienced pilots when the two of them had stupidly rushed into the bar to assist the others. When they'd finally escaped with Shepard, the _Normandy_ had shown up almost immediately, barely missing them despite intelligence reports from the salarian STG that placed it on the other side of the Terminus Systems.

Ihla took another sip of her coffee. Hot drinks were a human innovation and although the concept had seemed strange to many species when they were first introduced to it, drinks like coffee and tea had quickly caught on. Eventually, strains of coffee beans had been engineered that could be safely consumed by turians. _I can't believe the old Council races were around for thousands of years without coming up with something so simple. _

The worst part was losing the men. She had never been one of those turian officers who thought the best way to win a battle was to pave the way to victory over the backs of her own men. Turian soldiers were the most disciplined in the galaxy, but that didn't mean they were meant to be expendable. The pointless waste of lives on Minthras still bothered her because it had been so C-Sec officers were supposed to flush Shepard out, not try to apprehend him themselves. _That idiot Winslow probably thought it would make his career if he brought in a Spectre. _Ihla sighed. _It's not their fault that pompous ass Naeus thought they could get the job done. _

She made one final circuit of the room before heading back for the stairs. She was sure they'd lost the _Normandy_ but she still wanted to hide out on Pellas for one more day just to be sure. _Still, we should probably get everything prepared for immediate departure in case the locals find us. _

A flash of light, sunlight reflecting off something shiny, caught her eye. It was probably just the light reflecting off the clouds or the atmosphere, but it didn't pay to be careless. Ihla looked out the window and saw the flash again but couldn't identify it.

"This is Storm Falcon to Outrider-3. There might be something in your sector, flying south-southeast of your position. Identify it and let me know what it is."

A few seconds passed before the order was acknowledged. Ihla shook her head. The men were getting too relaxed from having sat in one place too long and it was starting to affect their attentiveness.

"Outrider-3 reads you, Command. Conducting LADAR sweep now."

She didn't have enough men left to cover the entire mining complex and she knew it. If Outrider-3 identified the anomaly as an aircraft, they'd have to hide…

There was a plume of smoke and flame streaked out from Outrider-3's position. Ihla's eyes widened as she realized what it was.

"Outrider-3, Outrider-3! Cease fire and abort the missile launch! Repeat, abort launch!"

It was too late. The missile streaked through the air and slammed into what she could now see was a small shuttle. The shuttle disintegrated, raining fiery debris from the sky. Ihla didn't even wait for the first pieces to hit the ground before she was bounding down the stairs, out into the building storm.

"This is Storm Falcon to all elements! Fall back to defensive positions and prepare for imminent contact with the enemy!"

She cursed and unpacked her rifle. _Can anything else go wrong on this mission?_

_

* * *

_

Jacob had just silently dispatched a turian sentry when his commbead crackled.

"Miranda, we have a problem."

Frowning, Jacob dragged the body into a dark room beside the staircase and concealed himself in the shadows. He hadn't expected the plan to go perfectly but… _Less than ten minutes in and we're already running into trouble?_

"Give me a sitrep, Garrus," Miranda ordered over the comm net.

"Somebody took out our shuttle with a missile. It came from one of the guardtowers so it was probably one of Shepard's captors but we should assume the local militia saw it and will want to check it out."

Pressing his commbead into his ear, Jacob checked the heatsink on his shotgun.

"We're on the clock then. We should split up, Jacob. I'll take the two buildings west of the landing pad. You take the warehouse to the east."

Jacob acknowledged Miranda's order and slowly made his way to the ground floor of the building they'd landed on earlier. Moving to the doorway, he turned on his suit's IR sensors and cautiously stepped outside into the snow.

Before he could take another step though, he heard Garrus' voice in his ear.

"Don't move, Jacob. There're two guards coming around the corner."

He heard the soft _pop-pop_ of Garrus firing two subsonic concussion rounds over his earpiece a split second before he heard two bodies crumple to the ground.

"You're clear to your target building, Jacob. Keep moving though, I'm picking up more activity on my IR scope."

"Roger that, Garrus."

Jacob checked his suit sensors for hostile contacts, but finding none, he sprinted across the snow to a two-story, block-shaped building that looked like a warehouse of some sort. Reaching his objective, he kept his shotgun at the ready as he stepped through a sidedoor. _Oh crap. _He was staring into a vast, open area with several prefabricated offices lining the second floor. Scattered on the warehouse floor was a plethora of abandoned, rusting mining equipment as far as he could see. _This could take a while._ Two C-Sec officers ran across a catwalk above him and he instinctively ducked behind a tractor. _And now I've got company. This mission just keeps getting better and better. _

_

* * *

_

Miranda heard voices directly below her. _It sounds like three… no, only two of them, standing in close proximity to each other. _Pausing only long enough to confirm her guess with her IR sensor, she leapt over the balcony and slammed into the two C-Sec officers, snapping both their necks as she landed. _Not bad, two down with no fuss and no alarms – and I didn't even have to use my biotics this time. _She drew her submachine gun again and quickly cleared the rest of the building. This one seemed to have once been a barracks of some sort and the many rooms meant it took her longer to search through than the last building, but again, there was no sign of Shepard. _I hope Jacob is having more success than me. _

"Garrus, give me a sitrep," she whispered.

"The snowstorm's really starting to pick up. My visibility is down to half up here but C-Sec doesn't seem to know we're here yet. I think they're more worried about the local militia."

"They must think our shuttle was a local craft. Any signs of the militia yet?"

"We should still have a few minute…" Garrus' voice trailed off. "Scratch that, I can see vehicles on the horizon. Judging by the amount of snow they're throwing up, they're moving fast. I'd advise you and Jacob to pick up the pace."

Miranda furrowed her brows. With the shuttle gone, she'd have to call the _Normandy _to send another and hope they could find Shepard and escape before either C-Sec or the locals realized they were here. _Hopefully they'll distract each other long enough that they won't notice us. _

"Jacob, what's your status?"

"Slow. This place is crawling with C-Sec. Judging by the looks of it, they're guarding something and I'm willing to bet that something is a certain ex-Spectre we've been looking for."

_Damnit. I knew we should have started there first. _The warehouse was the closest building to the landing pad but it was also the most exposed. Miranda had figured the Spectre holding Shepard would be holding him in a less obvious location. _They were probably keeping him there in case they had to make a quick getaway. _

"Keep moving, Jacob, but stay out of sight. Garrus and I will join you in a few minutes."

She switched comm channels and checked her encryption.

"Joker, Miranda. I need you to prepare another shuttle but keep it at altitude until I call for it. Also, that ship we've been hunting is sitting on a landing pad near my location. Lock weapons on it but don't fire unless I order you to."

"We'll have to come out of stealth to fire our weapons, Miranda. That could be suicide if the locals have any anti-orbital defences," the helmsman warned.

"It _will _be suicide for you if you don't do as I say. Bring the _Normandy_ into geosynchronous orbit and prepare a firing solution on that ship!" She switched channels back to their local comm net. "Garrus, I want-"

The C-Sec officer spotted her at the same time as she saw him.

"Hey! Drop your-"

Miranda cut him off by slamming him into the wall with her biotics. _I should have seen him. _Alternating between coordinating the ground team and the _Normandy_ as well as trying to avoid C-Sec herself was difficult and she was getting sloppy. She continued her transmission.

"Garrus, I want you to stay where you are and keep an eye on the militia. Try and slow their progress a bit but stay hidden. If things get too hot, fall back to the warehouse where Jacob is."

As soon as Garrus had confirmed her instructions, she hid the bodies of the dead C-Sec officers and began moving towards Jacob. _I hope we're not cutting things too close. _

_

* * *

_

Garrus could clearly make out the militia vehicles now. There were five of them, light APCs of a type he didn't recognize. Judging by their non-uniform appearance, he guessed they were converted civilian transports. The chatter of gunfire shifted his gaze below him where he saw a thin line of C-Sec officers firing at the militia. _They might as well throw rocks. _The rounds fired by the C-Sec defenders were bounding harmlessly off the armour plating of the APCs. Garrus snorted. _Looks like C-Sec really tightened up their recruiting standards. Not. _The first of the APCs ran over the front gate of the mining complex and a mounted gun on top opened fire.

"Garrus, I want you to stay where you are and keep an eye on the militia. Try and slow their progress a bit but stay hidden. If things get too hot, fall back to the warehouse and set up a firing position to cover the entrance."

Tapping his earpiece to acknowledge Miranda's orders, he sighted through the scope of his rifle and focused on the rear hatch of the first APC. He caught a glimpse of the top of a helmet as the hatch opened and fired. The turian militia soldier fell lifelessly out of the hatch as it opened fully. _Gotcha. _He quickly dispatched two more soldiers before switching sides and taking down a particularly aggressive C-Sec officer to keep the firefight below in a stalemate.

After several minutes of this, he realized the militia was slowly pushing the C-Sec forces back towards the warehouse. _Time to move. _Informing Miranda of his intentions, he packed up his rifle and bounded down the stairs. He hoped Miranda and Jacob had found Shepard. Judging by the firefight raging below, they were running out of time.


	6. Chapter 5

Ihla ducked into the cover of a nearby building as heavy automatic fire stitched the area around her, cutting down two more of her men. Gritting her teeth, she waited a few seconds, then leaned out and retaliated by gunning down three militia soldiers.

_How did Jolan mistake an order for a LADAR sweep with permission to fire? _The fight wasn't going well for them and based on comm chatter she'd intercepted, the five APCs full of militia they were battling now were just an advance team. Reinforcements would be on the way.

She ejected her heat sink and loaded another one. As she tried to move to another firing location, something caught her foot and she almost tripped. It was a dead C-Sec officer. Ihla shook her head angrily and was about to move on when she noticed something strange. _No blood. His neck was snapped. But… by who? _It couldn't have been the militia. The militia was pushing her C-Sec forces back, but as far as she could tell they hadn't managed to get behind their lines.

She spotted a blur of movement on the other side of the compound but when she tried to focus with her visor she couldn't make out anything. _Am I seeing things now? _The blur moved again. It was barely visible, just a slight shimmer in the air, but she could clearly see the snow whipping around something. Her eyes widened as she realized what she was looking at. _Tactical cloak. _

"Larum, we've got enemy infiltrators behind our lines and they're not militia. There's a team here looking for Shepard! Take two men and secure the warehouse sublevel," she ordered. "I'll meet you there as soon as I can."

Not even waiting to hear if Larum had heard the order, she popped out of cover, drew both her pistols and started sprinting towards the warehouse. A small squad of militia blocking her path went down in a flurry of shots and another group that moved to stop her were themselves stopped with a pair of grenades. _Almost there – just another few hundred metres! _The impact of the missile threw her off her feet, pitching her twenty metres backward into the housing of an industrial mining laser. She tried to get up, but she saw her world spinning and she blacked out.

* * *

Jacob forced himself to move slowly, despite the urge to move through each room as quickly as he could so they could find Shepard and extract. He could hear the shooting outside and it was getting closer. Holding his shotgun at the ready, he pushed a door open, his finger tensing slightly on the trigger. _Empty. _There was nothing in the room besides dusty furniture. He had moved through two-thirds of the warehouse by now and was almost at the loading docks that looked out on the landing pad.

Miranda was on the other side of the warehouse doing the same, methodically working her way through each side room and around abandoned mining equipment and shipping containers. Judging by where she'd been the last time they'd checked in with each other, he guessed she was about halfway through her side.

Carefully making his way down a flight of stairs, he weaved through a maze of shipping crates towards the loading dock. Taking a deep breath, Jacob spun out from behind a massive ore bin and trained his shotgun on the loading dock ahead of him. _Nothing. _He continued to scan for a few seconds in case somebody was waiting to ambush him before moving across the loading dock. As he swept his shotgun up to cover the catwalks above him, he stepped on a loose grate that collapsed under his weight, dumping him onto the hard concrete floor of a sublevel beneath the loading dock.

The two C-Sec officers staring at him had the same shocked expression on their faces that he suspected he was wearing. Before they could recover though, Jacob managed to get his shotgun out from under his body and pull the trigger, pitching one of them backwards. The other drew his sidearm but Jacob was already on him, slamming the butt of his shotgun into the man's face repeatedly until he stopped moving.

Breathing heavily, Jacob painfully rose to his feet. His face felt wet. At first he thought it was sweat but as he wiped if off with the back of his hand, it felt sticky. Without even looking at his hand, he realized it wasn't sweat. _Blood. Not mine._ Once upon a time the idea of being splattered with someone else's blood would have sickened him but he'd gotten used to it. _Is that really a good thing? _He wiped his hands on his armour and tried to get his bearings. He was in some kind of tunnel, running under the floor of the warehouse, one end leading out to the loading dock, the other leading to a heavy metal door. _I wonder what those two were guarding… _He really didn't need to, but he cautiously moved up to the door and checked his sensors. _One signal. Human. _

Taking a step back, breathed deep and then kicked the door in, shotgun sweeping from side to side but other than a single human chained to the wall, the room was empty. _Shepard. _The ex-Spectre was unconscious, stripped to the waist and restrained by shock cuffs. _I guess they weren't taking any chances. _Jacob went over to a nearby console and deactivated the restraints. Going back to Shepard, he unlocked the restraints and caught the unconscious man when he fell.

Jacob pressed his commbead to his ear.

"Miranda, I've found Shepard."

Her response was almost immediate but she was surprisingly calm.

"What condition is he in?"

Laying him on the floor, Jacob checked his pulse.

"Unconscious, but his breathing and pulse seem normal_. _They might have drugged him though, I see some medical equipment in here." Jacob grabbed a jug of water from a nearby table, took Shepard's jaw in his hand and poured some water over his face.

"Shepard, you alright? It's Jacob, I'm here to get you out."

Shepard groaned. The glazed look slowly left his eyes and he weakly rubbed the back of his head. Recognizing Jacob, he arched an eyebrow.

"Taylor?" _At least he seems lucid. _Shepard's grey eyes focused on him and a weak grin emerged on his face. "Good to see you finally made it to the party. I was afraid you'd lost the address."

* * *

Miranda felt her heart skip a beat when Jacob told her she'd found Shepard. She wasn't sure what she'd do first when she saw him, wrap her arms around him and never let him go again, or strange him for getting himself into this mess and putting her through the ordeal of the past week? _Maybe both? _The sound of footsteps shook her out of her thoughts. _Escape first, strangling later. _She ducked behind an ore bin as three turians dressed in C-Sec uniforms ran past. As the first one came into her line of sight, she drilled him in the back of the head with her submachine gun. Before the other two knew they were under attack, she stepped out and grabbed one of them by the back of the head, launching him face first into the side of a flight of stairs. When she turned her attention to the last C-Sec officer, a shot rang out and the back of the turian's head exploded.

"This is Garrus, I've taken up position on a catwalk directly above you."

Looking up, Miranda could barely make out Garrus, concealed amongst a pile of debris.

"What's the situation outside?"

"Not good," Garrus responded. "Militia reinforcements just arrived and C-Sec is falling back on this building."

Miranda cursed.

"Joker, send the shuttle now."

The helmsman's response wasn't what she had hoped.

"Uh… I'd advise against that, Miranda. The local flyboys have decided to make an appearance. They'll be over your location in less than five minutes."

The thundering of low flying aircraft sweeping in overhead confirmed Joker's report. "Never mind, they're on you now. Jesus, those guys are fast. I'll have to get me one of those with my next bonus."

Miranda ignored Joker's attempt at humour. "Jacob, where's the nearest safe landing zone? We'll hide out in here until the fighting dies down and exfiltrate when it's quiet."

"Foxtrot, ten klicks north. There's a valley with a dry riverbed at the bottom. The shuttle can probably land there without anybody noticing."

"Put the shuttle down there then, Joker. Miranda out." _Ten kilometres. If Shepard's still drugged as Joker said, we might have to carry him. _She switched comm channels again.

"Jacob, take Shepard to LZ Foxtrot. I'm uploading the location to you now. Garrus and I will draw any pursuers off and meet you there."

"Miranda that's suic-" Jacob began to protest but she cut him off.

"That wasn't a suggestion, Operative Taylor. Garrus and I will rendezvous with you as soon as we lose any pursuers. Take Shepard and go. Is that clear?"

"Crystal," Jacob responded with less enthusiasm than she would have liked. Scavenging heat sinks from the dead C-Sec officers, she ran up the stairs and took up a position across from Garrus.

"I hope your trigger finger isn't getting tired. This is about to get a lot more interesting."

* * *

As Ihla slowly came to, the first thought that ran through her mind was to wonder how she was still alive. She felt a throbbing in her carapace where she had struck the mining laser that made it painful to breath. All around her men were fighting, shouting, screaming, shooting… _dying_. Overhead a flight of militia gunships was making strafing runs, seemingly indifferent to whether they caught friend or foe in their sights.

The mission was a complete wash. Most of her men were probably dead and the rest would soon follow. If she didn't escape, she'd join them. _Escape? What are you? A salarian? _The mission wouldn't be a wash if she completed the primary objective – getting Shepard back to the Citadel. Camouflaged on the landing bay, nobody seemed to have noticed the blockade runner yet and if she could just get to Shepard before his would-be rescuers did, she might be able to slip away with what was left of her force. For a moment, she wondered why she was even trying to complete her mission. She didn't believe Shepard was guilty. Even if she succeeded, it wouldn't bring back all the men she'd lost. _You took an oath to serve the Hierarchy and the Council faithfully and unquestioningly. _The thought made her uncomfortable but she couldn't ignore it. If she completed her mission, she'd remain a Spectre in good standing which would hopefully allow her to maybe even help Shepard out somehow. If she cut her losses and ran, she'd be considered a deserter and the Council would likely send a Spectre after _her_.

"Larum, have you secured Shepard yet?"

No answer. _How long has it been? Ten minutes? He should have been there by now. _

"Larum, come in."

Her commbead remained silent. She tried one more time even though she already knew Larum and his men were probably dead.

"Larum, do you copy?"

As she had expected, no one answered. _Looks like it's up to me… just like it's been since the beginning_, she thought bitterly. Slinging her carbine over her shoulder, she peeked out at the raging battle going on outside the warehouse. More militia were arriving every minute but fortunately, besides the gunships, they hadn't brought in any heavy weapons.

Move from cover to cover, she reached the warehouse quickly, avoiding the mistake she'd made the last time of trying to shoot her way past the enemy forces. There were just too many of them and in this case, discretion was definitely the better part of valour. Activating her tactical cloak, she crept through a ventilation grate into the warehouse, avoiding the free-for-all ensuing by the front doors. Dropping into the tunnels in the sublevel, she deactivated her cloak to conserve energy and ran towards the rear loading dock, confident she had remained unseen. As she rounded the final corner, she skidded to a stop and drew her carbine. _Blood. _

Klein and Lorhar were lying motionless outside Shepard's room. Klein's chest had been torn open by what looked like a blast at close range from a high powered shotgun and Lorhar's face had been so badly bashed in that she was only able to identify him by his armour. She felt her blood run cold as she advanced down the hall. Gripping her carbine tightly, she used its barrel to tip the door to Shepard's makeshift prison open. _He's gone. _

_

* * *

_

Jacob made his way slowly towards the massive bay doors leading out onto the landing pad. Shepard had lapsed back into unconsciousness and he was dead weight. Thanks to enhancements like his reinforced skeleton and synthetically augmented muscles, the man weighted a lot more than he looked. All of Shepard's weight was resting on a single point on his shoulder and it was getting sore. Jacob lowered his head to redistribute Shepard's weight more evenly. The action saved his life. The _ping_ of a round ricocheting off the bay doors ahead of him was the only warning he got before the next round struck him in the centre of his torso as he turned to see where it came from. The impact knocked the air out of his lungs and threw him to the ground. To his alarm, his tactical display was flashing red, warning him that his kinetic barriers had been completely depleted. _After one shot?_

"Leaving so soon, Mr. Taylor? You only just arrived."

Rolling over on his back, Jacob reached for his shotgun but it was just barely beyond his grasp. A turian clad in the armour of a Council Spectre was walking towards him, clutching a pistol in… _her hand?_

"You… you're female…?"

The turian arched the crest over her eye in a manner eerily similar to the way Garrus did at times.

"Why is that such a surprise to everyone? Haven't _any _of you humans ever seen a female turian before? You realize we're not asari right, that we have _two _genders?" She laughed at her own joke and strided up to him. She pointed her pistol in his face. _Crazy female turian Spectre. Never thought I'd go out like this. _

_

* * *

_

Garrus fired two parting shots at the advancing militia and fell back to another firing position.

"Garrus, fall back to the landing pad and cover Jacob's escape. I'll try to cover you and delay them," Miranda shouted. Garrus' head snapped around to Miranda.

"I'm not leaving you to hold these guys by yourself. That's suicide," he shouted back. A militia soldier made the mistake of sticking his head out and Garrus made sure he'd never make the mistake again by putting a round through his eye. His relationship with Miranda had never developed beyond professional respect, but the thought of what the militia would do to her if they caught her was unthinkable. _Almost as unthinkable as what Shepard would do to me if he found out. _

"Shepard's survival is the only thing that matters. Fall back and cover Jacob." She thrust out her arm and a biotic explosion radiated outwards like the blast of a bomb, crushing the enemy soldiers caught in its epicentre and throwing those further out around like they were children's toys. "Besides, I can take care of myself. I can hold out a lot longer than you can. I'll rendezvous with the two of you when you've cleared the warehouse."

Garrus hesitated. Miranda was right. With her biotic abilities, she'd last far longer than he would, a single sniper against what looked like an entire battalion.

"Fine, but once Jacob and Shepard are safe, I'm coming back for you!" He spotted what looked like an officer shouting orders and cut him off mid-sentence with a shot in the throat. Miranda finished off his men with a barrage of rounds from her submachine gun.

"Fine. Now go!"

Casting one last glance in her direction, Garrus ran back along the catwalk. As he came towards the end, overlooking the loading dock, his eyes narrowed.

Shepard was lying motionless on the floor. A turian in dark blue armour was standing over Jacob with a gun pointed at his head. "Not today, Taylor, you cheap bastard. You still owe me fifty credits," he muttered under his breath, sighting down his scope at the turian. Zooming in on the face, his eyes widened in recognition just as he pulled the trigger. _Ihla? _The shot went wide and instead of hitting her just behind the right eye, it slammed into her armoured pauldron. _What the hell are you doing here?_

_

* * *

_

"Relax, I'm not going to execute you. I'm not a batarian. Put both your hands behind your head and cross your ankles."

Jacob slowly moved to comply, trying to hide the biotic charge he was building up in his body. _Only one shot at this. _A single gunshot rang out and he heard the turian cry out. Turning in surprise, he saw the turian spin backwards as the shot struck her shoulder. He caught a flash of blue on the catwalk above. _Garrus? _

The shot didn't seem to have penetrated the turian Spectre's armour and as she fell, Jacob watched in amazement as she trained her pistol on Garrus and fired two shots. The first went wide but the second hit home. Garrus' entire body seemed to convulse for a second before he went still. _What the hell is she shooting?_

The turian Spectre leapt to her feet and came back towards him.

"Shepard never mentioned that 'Archangel' was actually Garrus Vakarian. I never thought I'd see him again," she said with a smirk. Bringing his arm out from behind his back, Jacob threw a bolt of pure biotic energy at her that she was only able to dodge partially, tossing her on her back. _Go for the shotgun or the turian? _The shotgun was long and unwieldy at close quarters. The turian could bring her pistol up far faster. _Go for the turian. _His muscles uncoiling like a spring, he threw himself forward and exploded into the turian, hitting her like a blitzing linebacker striking a helpless quarterback.

The two of them skidded across the floor. Cocking back his arm, Jacob hammered it forward at the turian's head but she moved at the last second and it slammed into the concrete floor instead. As he grimaced, she kneed him in the stomach and threw him off of her. Seeing her raise her pistol, Jacob kicked out with his leg and managed to catch her wrist with his heel. Before he could follow that up with another attack though, she caught his descending leg and tossed him into a metal barrel. Jacob tried to stagger to his feet but the turian launched herself into him and began raining a flurry of kicks and punches at him. All he could do was try to protect his head, his forearms shadowing hers so he could block the furious rain of blows.

* * *

Garrus groaned weakly. _Incapacitator rounds. I knew I should never have shared my list of suppliers with her. _He tried to lift himself up with his left arm but it didn't respond. The round had hit right at the joint where his shoulder pad ended and the plate covering his upper arm began. _Probably broken. _Shifting his weight to his right, he pushed himself up so he could lean against the railing running along the edge of the catwalk.

Below him, he could see Jacob trying to fight Ihla hand-to-hand. Or more accurately, Jacob was trying just to _survive_ against Ihla hand-to-hand. He recognized the position Jacob was in and shook his head. Letting Ihla in close was a mistake – one that he'd made more than once. Tapping his commbead to make sure it still worked, he switched to Jacob's channel.

"Taylor, do you read?"

All Garrus heard for a few moments was Jacob's grunts but at least that meant their comms were still working.

"Garrus, it's great to hear you're okay but…" Another grunt, different this time. _Ihla must have gotten through his guard. _"… now isn't a good time."

"Jacob, you're fighting Ihlaran Tuasser, former recon scout of the 451st Legion, now apparently a Spectre. If you want to live, listen to me."

Garrus could almost see the surprised expression on Jacob's face.

"You know this Spectre?" Jacob's momentary lapse in attention earned him a glancing blow that would have taken off his head if he hadn't partially deflected it at the last second. "How?"

"Old sparring partner, not important," Garrus said quickly. "She's using her left knee for leverage. Kick out with your right."

* * *

Jacob did as Garrus instructed and the turian collapsed on him, caught off guard by his kick.

"You've got to put some distance between you and her."

Grabbing the Spectre by the collar of her armour, Jacob threw the much lighter woman off him.

"Now take advantage of your superior reach. Don't let her get in close."

The turian lunged at him again but this time Jacob quickly sidestepped and managed to land a quick blow that dazed her long enough for him to dance out of the way.

"She's a master grappler and very flexible. Don't try to wrestle her. She knows how to use your strength against you."

Jacob just barely managed to escape Ihla's attempt to grab him but she managed to land two shots that sent him reeling.

"'Very flexible'?" He deflected a flying kick aimed at his chin into his armoured chest instead. "How did you find that out?"

"Do you want to talk or do you want to live?" Garrus snapped angrily. "If she tries that move again, she'll launch off her right foot. She never realized this, but she always alternates sides with that kick. Duck under the kick and sweep out her right leg when she lands."

Jacob managed to deflect another two punches but a third caught him on the chin, dazing him. As his eyes focused, he saw Ihla plant her right foot and realized she was going to launch into another flying kick. Heeding Garrus' advice, he ducked and clumsily swept his own leg around as the turian landed. She barely avoided the trip but was thrown off balance. Jacob lashed out with a kick of his own that grazed her ribs but didn't fully connect as she sidestepped it at the last second. He immediately had to dance backwards as she launched straight into a full counterattack. _Don't turians ever get tired?_

He lowered his head and managed to temporarily stop the assault by forcing her fist into his hard forehead instead of his face. Coming down with his elbow, he caught her at the base of her neck and felt a satisfying _crack _as she went down. To Jacob's disbelief, the Spectre just popped back up.

"You've gotten her angry. She'll probably try to take you back down to the ground. When she charges, pivot to your… left and you should be able to throw her as she passes."

Just as Garrus had said, the turian lowered her head and charged. He pivoted on his left foot at the last second – and took the full impact of the turian's charge in his left side, knocking the breath out of him as he crashed to the ground.

"Sorry, your right, my left."

Jacob found himself in an uncomfortably familiar position – on his back while a hail of fists, elbows, and knees hammered his body. _Not again. _

_

* * *

_

Miranda instinctively dodged to her right as a sniper's round passed her so close she could almost feel the friction on her cheek. Lashing out with her biotics, she grabbed the sniper and launched him twenty metres in the air and watched him crash to the floor with the satisfying crunching sound of armour buckling.

From what she could tell from the exchange between Jacob and Garrus on the local comm net, Jacob was battling the Spectre hand-to-hand – _and probably getting the worst of it_, she thought to herself. Jacob was at his best against bigger, slower opponents and turians were known for their speed. A flurry of rounds struck the empty ore bin she was hiding behind, the resulting racket sounding much like she was standing behind a church bell. _No time to worry about Jacob. Got to focus on myself right now. _The surviving C-Sec officers had stopped shooting at her, figuring that the incoming militia were a greater threat. If Jacob and Garrus managed to fend off the Spectre, they had a chance to make it to the shuttle but she didn't. Despite Garrus' earlier protests, she had no intention of sacrificing her life though. The blockade runner was still parked on the landing pad and right now EDI was trying to override its security systems. With any luck, she could hijack it and hopefully escape into orbit where the _Normandy_ could pick her up.

"How much progress have you made with that hack, EDI? This situation is rapidly becoming untenable!"

EDI's infuriatingly calm voice responded immediately.

"_I have full control of the blockade runner's systems, Operative Lawson. However, I advise you to seek alternate transport. There are enemy aircraft in the area and the blockade runner will not be able to avoid them." _

"Alternate transport? Should I hail a skycab? There _is_ no alternate transport!" Miranda snarled. She'd just have to take her chances. _I might not be Joker, but I know how to fly_. She'd just have to hope the shields on the blockade runner were strong enough to withstand the fire of the militia gunships until she could escape. An utterly insane idea suddenly occurred to her.

"EDI, can you fly the blockade runner remotely?"

"_Affirmative, Operative Lawson, but any increase to performance will be minimal. My piloting skills are superior to yours but the blockade runner lacks the requisite manoeuvring capability for me to avoid pursuit."_

Miranda threw a grenade around the corner and the cries she heard when it exploded told her that she'd at least caught a few enemies in the blast.

"That wasn't my plan, EDI. I want you to take the blockade runner up and attempt to draw off the enemy air cover. That should allow you to land the shuttle at the back of the loading bay."

"That's brilliant! Why didn't I think of that?" Joker interjected.

"_Because you lack the necessary creativity and intelligence, which may account for why you are a helmsman and not a command officer," _EDI responded._ "That was a joke."_

Miranda shook her head. She'd have to keep a closer eye on those two. EDI seemed to be developing a personality, something her Cerberus creators had never anticipated.

"EDI?"

"_Your plan is feasible, Operative Lawson. I will initiate the lift off sequence upon your order."_

Cautiously sticking her head out, Miranda charged up her biotic powers and created a singularity in the middle of the warehouse. As the biotic singularity sucked up everything around it, Miranda began running towards the loading bays.

"Now, EDI! Do it now!"

* * *

"You fight a lot like Garrus – safe and predictable," Ihla snarled. The turian Spectre had figured him out and Garrus' directions were becoming worse than useless. Where before he had been able to anticipate her moves with Garrus' help, now she was anticipating his. Jacob had begun to resort to just absorbing blows and trying to roll with them, hoping the turian would eventually tire with her frantic pacing and leave him another opening. _Yeah right. Why don't you just wish for a mint copy of Superman #1 while you're at it? _

Ihla stunned him with a knee to the midsection that he felt even through his armour and knocked aside his guard. He was unable to roll or shift his other arm across before her blow struck him right beneath the eye. Jacob felt his head snap back into the floor and he saw stars.

"Time to end this, Mr. Taylor."

As his eyes refocused, he found himself staring down the barrel of her pistol. A flash of light and a sudden rumbling drew his eyes out towards the landing pad as a wave of heat washed over his face. The blockade runner's engines roared to life, lifting it off the landing pad. _That's an opening, you idiot. _Ihla looked back at him a moment too late. Jacob's kick caught her right in the midsection. Using the space he'd created between them, Jacob focused all his strength into generating a biotic attack he'd never even attempted before. _Please let this work. _He could feel a buzzing in his back molars as he summoned all his reserves. Thrusting his arms out, he watched as a biotic shockwave thundered from his open hands. Ihla's eyes met his for a split second before it rammed into her body like a freight train, pitching her into the wall hard enough to dent it. With a sickening thud, the Spectre's body fell to the floor, motionless.

To Jacob's surprise, Garrus bounded down the stairs two at a time, crouching beside the prone Spectre and gently cradled her head.

"She's still alive. No serious injuries other than a few bruises," Garrus called to him. _That's one tough broad._ The woman had come within seconds of killing him, but Jacob was glad he hadn't killed her, although he wasn't entirely sure why.

"Where is he?"

Jacob turned his head and spotted Miranda running towards them, her face sheened with sweat, hair a complete mess, uniform ripped and torn in at least a dozen places.

"Where's Shepard?" she demanded again. Jacob nodded towards Shepard and she rushed over to him.

"I'm fine, by the way," he muttered, rubbing his cheek where Ihla had landed a direct shot. _That's gonna leave a mark. _

Miranda put Shepard's arm over her shoulder and hauled him to his feet.

"Both of you, we've got to get out on the landing pad. I don't want the shuttle sitting there on the pad for more than few seconds with all that fire coming in towards it."

"I thought we were humping it out to LZ Foxtrot." Jacob grabbed his shotgun and aimed it warily in the direction Miranda had come from but it seemed she'd somehow delayed her pursuers.

Miranda shook her head as she half dragged Shepard towards the open bay doors.

"Change of plans. EDI's putting down the shuttle right outside."

"What about the Spectre?"

"What about her? Leave her," she ordered coldly. Jacob exchanged glances with Garrus.

"We can't leave her here for the militia to find," Garrus protested. Miranda was about to answer when Shepard stirred.

"She comes with us," he slurred. Miranda glared but nodded to Garrus. Garrus hauled the Spectre up with his good arm and began dragging her behind him.

"Joker, where's that shuttle?" Miranda asked nervously.

"Not coming," Joker answered. Jacob felt like he'd been punched in the stomach. Out on the open landing pad, they would be completely exposed when either C-Sec or the militia came spilling out of the warehouse. "EDI and I modified the plan and decided…"

Jacob heard a faint rumbling that slowly grew to a roar as the _Normandy_ descended out of the atmosphere. "…why not simplify it and just pick you up ourselves?"

In the distance, the gunships began to sweep back towards them, having already set the blockade runner aflame. Without warning, the blockade runner suddenly exploded like a nuclear bomb, knocking all but one of the gunships out of the sky and flattening everything around it. "Here's a tip for how to handle an FTL vessel – never run the drive core beyond manufacturer-suggested safe operating limits or something like that will happen!" As the last gunship streaked towards them, the _Normandy_'s flank suddenly lit up like a Christmas tree, all of its GARDIAN batteries opening up at the same time, completely vaporizing the smaller craft.

"You took the _Normandy_ out of orbit? If your stunt kills us all, I'm going to resurrect both of us so I can kill you again, Joker!" Miranda snarled. She looked back at Jacob and Garrus. "Get to the _Normandy_!"

"Don't have to tell me twice," Jacob muttered. Grabbing the Spectre from Garrus and throwing her over his shoulders in a fireman's carry, he ran towards the _Normandy'_sdescending cargo ramp as the turian fired at the militia soldiers who were beginning to emerge from the warehouse behind them.

"I've got this, Garrus," Joker said over the comm net. The turian ran up the ramp as the _Normandy_'s GARDIAN batteries again opened fire, the bright red beams carving through men and setting the warehouse alight.

"Get us out of here, Joker. We're all aboard," Miranda ordered. Jacob dropped the unconscious Spectre to the deck as the _Normandy _lifted off. He looked at Garrus, whose wounded arm was being tended to by a Crewman Rawlins.

"So… old sparring partner, huh?" The turian glared at him but Jacob pretended not to notice as he walked toward the main lift. As he stepped into the lift, Garrus called out to him.

"Taylor, there's been something I've been meaning to tell you. I remembered it while we were down there."

"Yeah?"

Garrus grinned.

"You owe me fifty credits."


	7. Epilogue

Jacob lounged on the couch in Kasumi's old quarters, holding an ice bag to his swollen cheek with one hand, the remote for the holoprojector in his other. For the first time in recent memory, he had skipped his daily workout but he didn't care. _I deserve a day off. _Usually he hated inactivity but today it felt good to just lie back and be lazy.

The door slid open and he turned his head.

"What are you watching?" Miranda asked. She had taken a shower and changed. Unlike him, she looked fresh and exactly like she normally did – like she'd just walked out of a magazine ad. He would never have guessed that she'd singlehanded taken on a battalion by herself yesterday.

Jacob shrugged. "Some reality show I think. They dump a bunch of people on an abandoned moon and they take part in random contests for credits. Some guy's about to try to out-eat a krogan." He took his feet off the couch. "Wanna join me?"

Miranda smiled. "Maybe another time."

She walked over to him and to his surprise, she wrapped her arms around him and gave him a hug. He grimaced. _The first time she hugs me since we broke up and it has to be when I've got bruises covering ninety percent of my body. _

"Sorry, I forgot," she apologized. Jacob coughed, trying to pretend he hadn't made the face he had.

"Oh… uh… don't worry about it. It was just a… neck cramp." He rolled his head around in an exaggerated motion and immediately regretted it as now he actually _did_ have a neck cramp. "What was the hug for?"

"For taking charge of the mission when I couldn't. We would never have found Shepard without you, Jacob. Leading the search, dealing with Aria, I know it couldn't have been easy for you."

Jacob chuckled.

"Yeah, well… it was nice getting a chance to lead again."

"Well don't get too used to it. I'm the ship's XO, not you," Miranda said with a smile. She patted his arm. "Just… thanks."

As she turned to leave, she almost bumped into Shepard.

"I'd like to see you in my office later. There's something we should discuss."

She gave Shepard a peck on the cheek and left.

"So Commander, is 'There's something we should discuss' some kind of euphemism?"

"Careful, Lieutenant. I owe you for pulling my ass out of the fire, but that doesn't mean I won't still make you clean the latrines if you piss me off," Shepard said in mock irritation. He disappeared behind the bar and rummaged around for a while before appearing again with a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label scotch and a small wooden box. As he emerged from behind the bar, he opened the box and Jacob realized it contained individually wrapped cigars.

"You know, Miranda 'accidentally' threw out your scotch and cigarettes when we trashed your cabin. I should have known you'd have a secret stash."

Shepard handed Jacob a snifter.

"Black is for everyday. Blue is for emergencies like when your girlfriend throws all your Black out and you need something really smooth to comfort yourself and get over it." He filled Jacob's snifter, then his own. "Don't spill this drink, Jacob. This is my only bottle and I had to confiscate it from a restaurant proprietor on the Citadel."

"Confiscate?" Jacob asked, arching an eyebrow.

"He didn't have the proper authorization to import agricultural products from Earth." Shepard shrugged. "I didn't have any choice. Spectres have a duty to preserve order and stability in Council space. That includes enforcing agricultural import regulations."

Jacob took a sip. _Hmm… not bad. I could get used to this. _It was remarkably smooth, with a slight hint of smoke and peat. "I didn't realize scotch was an 'agricultural product'."

"Scotch is made with barley, barley is an agricultural product." Shepard grinned. "What's the point of having power if you can't abuse it once in a while? Life as a Spectre is hard. The pay sucks, the hours suck, you have to work weekends, and there's no vacation time. On top of that, you have to pay for your own equipment. Working for Cerberus hasn't been much better."

Jacob laughed. "Yeah, but at least you can't complain about the benefits. How many other employers can you name that cover 'death-by-Collector-attack' in their health plans?"

Shepard tipped his glass. "Touché." He cut the tip off two cigars and offered Jacob one. Jacob thought about refusing it but then reconsidered. _What the hell, why not? _

"Who'd you 'confiscate' these from?"

The question elicited an even wider grin from Shepard.

"They were supposed to be a gift for Ambassador Udina from a volus trade delegation. I was suspicious they might be poisoned so I 'confiscated' them for the Ambassador's safety."

Shepard lit their cigars and for a while both of them sat contentedly in Kasumi's room, puffing contentedly and enjoying their scotch, watching an overweight human turn several shades of green as he shovelled food into his mouth in an attempt to outdo a particularly surly-looking krogan.

"So what'd you do with that Spectre?" Jacob finally asked, breaking the silence.

"I restrained her, put her in one of our shuttles, and set it adrift. She's probably freed herself and should be about halfway to the Citadel by now."

"Why'd you do that?" Jacob asked. "You know she could come after you again."

"Yeah, but if I eliminated her the Council would just send another." Shepard frowned. "We had a little chat before you showed up."

Jacob arched an eyebrow. "Oh yeah?"

"The Council might be led by a bunch of idiots, but not everybody working for them wants to play ostrich. Ihla, the C-Sec grunts working for her, those crazy turians on Pellas, even all those mercs we had to kill over the last few months… none of them were the real enemy."

"The Reapers," Jacob said softly. Shepard nodded sombrely. Even the mere mention of the Reapers had darkened the mood in the room considerably.

"I'll make you a deal, Jacob." Jacob arched an eyebrow questioningly. "If you promise not to mention the 'R' word again for the rest of today, I'll refill your glass."

Jacob chuckled. "If you make that two refills, you've got yourself a deal." Shepard pretended to think it over for a second then finally nodded and refilled Jacob's snifter. As the pleasant warmth of the scotch spread through his limbs, for a moment Jacob allowed himself to forget about the Reapers. For that moment, he was just a very relaxed, slightly inebriated, normal guy, sharing a laugh, a drink, and a good cigar with a friend. The Reapers, and everything else that was wrong with the galaxy, could wait for tomorrow.


End file.
